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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/30070590">Maybe Dead Is All I Can Be</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/witchyasgod/pseuds/witchyasgod'>witchyasgod</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Gen, Ghosts, Hogwarts, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, M/M, Not Canon Compliant - Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Past Percy Weasley/Oliver Wood - Freeform, Percy Weasley Needs a Hug, Percy Weasley Redemption, Percy Weasley-centric, Torture, involving a minor character, no beta we die like Percy in this fic, only a short scene but I'm tagging it just to be safe</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-03-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-05-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-15 18:42:54</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>9</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>42,062</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/30070590</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/witchyasgod/pseuds/witchyasgod</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Percy Weasley really didn't want to die. Unfortunately, destiny had never much cared about what he wanted, which was why he was murdered by Death Eaters in the middle of his office one day, after being caught forging passports for muggle-borns.</p><p>But Percy was a wizard, death didn't have to be permanent for him, and even though being a ghost by all accounts wasn't the ideal lifestyle (or, well, deathstyle), he had plenty of reason to stay - mainly because he hadn't spoken to his family in a year and he was pretty sure they hated him, which he still needed to change. And so he stayed.</p><p>(In which Percy Weasley dies during the war and becomes a Hogwarts ghost, more or less.)</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Percy Weasley &amp; Weasley Family, Percy Weasley/Original Male Character(s)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>87</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>217</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Agent Percival</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Percy Weasley wanted a lot of things.</p><p>He wanted to be great, to outshine his peers, his family.</p><p>He wanted power – to do good, to make good rules that would fix problems and help people.</p><p>He wanted respect - respect from his higher-ups, the powerful. But, deep down, he also longed for the respect of his family, where he had always been a bit of an outsider, the butt of many jokes.</p><p>He wanted to be the Minister for Magic, maybe, someday.</p><p>What he realised the day he died, was that he also really didn't want to die.</p><p>***</p><p>1<sup>st</sup> of August 1997 was the day of the Fall of the Ministry, Bill's wedding and the subsequent attack on his family. He had heard of the attack from the victorious Death Eaters laughing raucously about it in the Ministry, after having dragged off Mr. Scrimgeour in front of half his employees – to be killed, as they all knew. They only mentioned it in passing, something about surprising the blood traitors during the filthy wedding of two half-breeds and it took Percy a second to realize what, <em>who</em> they were talking about, for the panic to set in, the furious terror that made him deaf to the rest of that conversation.</p><p>All he could think of was the invitation still lying on his bedside table because he hadn’t had the heart (or maybe the time? He wasn’t even certain anymore) to dispose of it – he rarely ever entered his bedroom anyway, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d slept in his bed, not just short naps at his desk at work or on his couch at home. And then he thought of corpses, of screaming, though he couldn’t imagine them screaming, his family, all he could hear were the echoes of Mr. Scrimgeour’s screams from just an hour before, as he was Crucio-d in the middle of the Ministry.</p><p>That day never really ended for him, it continued on into a seemingly eternal sleepless night of contemplating his family – their laughs, their quirks, their hugs – and his life choices and the hopelessness of it all.</p><p>When the day finally did end after all – or maybe it didn’t, maybe it was just the next day that had started without the last one ever ending, never, never ending, because death never ended (especially not when it was little shy Ginny, laughing George, warm and loving Molly that were gone), the image of his parents’, his siblings’ empty eyes that had plagued his night would never ever leave his mind – he wasn’t sure how he found the strength to get up and walk into a Ministry filled with people who despised him just for the colour of his hair (no, that’s not true, they despised him for his father, who was unambitious and disrespectful and had never considered the future of his children, of his only son who truly strived for greatness), who wanted to see his family dead – <em>or already had</em>.</p><p>He walked into the building in a haze, followed Mrs. Umbridge into her office and obediently answered her questions about Harry Potter, his siblings – especially his youngest brother – and, though subtle, about his loyalties. He probably wouldn’t have been able to recall a word of that conversation only a few hours later, even though his memory had always been extraordinary.</p><p>The only thing he could still remember was the sentence she muttered carelessly at the end of the conversation: “Useless, just like the other Weasleys yesterday, we questioned all of the guests for hours and no one had anything useful to say…” and he felt like he could suddenly breathe. After three years at the Ministry he had gotten better at reading voices, at least when it really mattered, and the way she had said that meant that no one had been seriously hurt.</p><p>His mother, who had cried because of him, who would always love him unconditionally, was alive and well.</p><p>His father, funny and loving, though always a bit distant to him, was alive and well (and still looked through him at the Ministry when he saw him a few days later, like Percy had never existed – maybe he shouldn’t have).</p><p>His eldest brother, now freshly married to a woman Percy had never really met, a woman who loved him despite the scars that marred his face – which Percy had never really seen either – was alive and well.</p><p>The second eldest, who was like a dream (sometimes Percy barely remembered his face), who laughed and loved animals and was kind, was alive and well.</p><p>The twins, who had bullied and teased him relentlessly, despite being younger, always the heart of the party (while Percy was boring and annoying and unlikable) were alive and well.</p><p>His two littlest siblings, who he was raised to protect at all costs (but he had failed, somewhere along the line, and now they hated him, definitely didn’t look up at him like they were supposed to), were alive and well.</p><p>And even though he was still overworked, exhausted, and scared, more and more every day, his sleep-deprived brain soaking up the terror and misery around him, he could rest again, a few hours a day, and it was only in his nightmares that he still saw their lifeless faces.</p><p>***</p><p>It was a month later that he was standing in Mrs. Umbridge's office, still shaken up by the recent events (the break in to the Ministry had happened only two days before and everyone was constantly on edge, it was enough to drive even the most rational people into insanity), but past the phase of uncontrollable, chaotic swirl of thoughts, of guilt, self-righteousness, self-hatred, regret, that he had felt in the first week of August in his otherwise so methodical and clear mind. Since Mrs. Umbridge was now his direct supervisor he was waiting for her to show up and answer some of his questions – tiresome and bureaucratic in their nature, but necessary nonetheless.</p><p>With all the new regulations, some of which contradicted old regulations, some of which contradicted each other, and some of which, quite frankly, contradicted themselves – clearly none of the Death Eaters were particularly knowledgeable on law-making – the Ministry employees were having a hard time doing their jobs properly (if they ever really did). Unlike most of his colleagues, who wriggled their way between the lines or just decided to do as they saw fit, or thought the Death Eaters would see fit, Percy the perfectionist wanted to follow the rules – follow proper, functioning rules that wouldn’t bring the system to the brink of collapse.</p><p>Not that he didn’t want to see You-Know-Who’s empire destroyed, but nothing good was going to come out of it if the nation’s bureaucratic system failed – You-Know-Who could murder and maim his way out of anything, laws and paperwork had never been his weapon of choice anyway, but all the people dependent on this system, on the money or the health care or even security regulations, were Percy’s responsibility in this Ministry full of maniacs, idiots and cowards (though that last one… he wasn’t sure anymore if he could exclude himself from that group, Gryffindor or not).</p><p>As he was standing in her office his eyes caught on a fresh stack of documents on her desk – something about them sparked his curiosity and he stepped forward to take a closer look at them. His stomach dropped as he realized what he was looking at: these were documents of the Muggle-Born Registration Commission, court summons for muggle-borns who were going to be put to trial in the next days – to be charged for their heritage and imprisoned for it, or worse.</p><p>Percy shuddered and, as if on instinct, started flipping through the pages, memorizing the names on them, the names of the damned, the names of the people he was helping persecute by sitting in his office silently, doing his job. The thought shocked him, though at the same time he realized that he had known that for a while. The feeling had been sitting at the pit of his stomach since the Fall of the Ministry – maybe, probably, even before – the knowledge that he was taking part in something so horrible it should make everyone in this country weep.</p><p>His body, or maybe his wand, made a decision before he could even contemplate what to make of this sudden revelation. He vanished the entire set of files on her desk with a flick of his wrist (such a simple movement, and there was no going back) and then, knowing that it was too late to reconsider his split-second decision, he turned around and left, fleeing back into his office – his questions about the rules and bureaucracy could wait when there were lives on the line (no, no, they couldn’t, because how should he live without proper rules? How was he going to decide what to do, what was right?).</p><p>But he couldn’t dwell on this almost childlike fear, instead he shoved it down – like he had been doing with all of his emotions in the past years – and got to work. He wrote down a list of all the names he had memorized – there had been around twenty people in the pile – and summoned their files. He still had the authority to do that, still officially held the title of Junior Assistant to the Minister, even though he had barely even seen Mr. Thicknesse in the past month and he knew the new administration didn’t hold any love or trust for him (though the previous ones probably hadn’t either – and that stung, because Percy had given everything out of loyalty to them).</p><p>The only reason they were letting him keep his position, letting him stay at the Ministry at all, was to keep an eye on him, not because he was useful, not because he worked so hard for everyone’s approval, for a good system. Though, as his father would point out, Fudge hadn’t promoted him for his skills either, but because of his family, and Mr. Scrimgeour had used him for his family connections as well, so maybe he was really, truly worthless outside of his family name – and wasn’t that ironic, considering all he had done to distance himself from that name, that family.</p><p>Despite all this, Percy was an accomplished wizard, who had gathered a lot of experience in his three years at the Ministry. One of the things he had spent a lot of time fighting was document forgery – an issue especially prominent in the Wizarding World, where official documents had to be charmed extensibly to make it sufficiently difficult to fake them with a few glamours or duplication spells. Of course, while working on ways to avoid forgery, Percy had learned quite a lot about how it worked and what loopholes there were for forgers. Therefore it wasn’t particularly difficult (though still very time-consuming, he knew he was going to have to cut back on his already barely existent sleep to catch up with work afterwards) for him to create fake passports for the people on his list, which would hopefully be convincing enough to allow them to escape into a safe country that accepted refugees from the UK.</p><p>He then wrote all of them letters that explained their situation, how to best leave the country, and which places to escape to ideally, knowing their diplomatic relationship to You-Know-Who’s Ministry. Lastly, he asked them to burn his letter and leave as little evidence of his interference as possible and signed off with “your friend at the Ministry” – at that point he didn’t have the energy to come up with something more creative or misleading. (He really needed a coffee.)</p><p>After he sent off the letters and documents, in envelopes sealed with the official Ministry seal, another thing he still had access to for some reason (they really thought he was a spineless coward, didn’t they), he collapsed at his desk and fell asleep within minutes, thankfully leaving him barely any time to contemplate his insane decisions in the past, what was it, 14 hours? 20? It had been a long day, but it was nonetheless a miracle he had fallen asleep so fast, an eternity had passed since the last time that had happened. Perhaps his guilty conscience, his unbearable shame, the hungry monsters that ate up all his happiness like they were his own personal Dementors, had finally, if only temporarily, been calmed down by his actions that day.</p><p> </p><p>And for the next months it stayed the same: He fell asleep within seconds and slept peacefully, rarely waking up to a nightmare. It was only his waking time, which was of course the majority of his day, that he spent in terror (and with the shame and the guilt, though the fear kept them in check), as he continued to visit Mrs. Umbridge’s office regularly while she was on lunch break or at home, checking for any sign of new court summons. The ones he found, he vanished again, memorizing the names and repeating the same procedure he had done the first time. He made sure to check in when she was in her office as well, and ask annoying questions about regulations no one cared about: to keep up the image of perfect, rule abiding Percy, and also because he cared about the rules, and he wanted to do his job properly. Who knows, after all this was over (he could only hope that it would end with the Death Eaters’ defeat) someone would finally appreciate his effort and skill.</p><p>But for now, he was sabotaging his career, and his life, because as long as You-Know-Who reigned, his career was hopeless anyway – because he was a Weasley and because he had a conscience, he wasn’t going to sell his soul for his ambition (though he very nearly had). He wasn’t going to sell his soul out of fear either – he was a Gryffindor and proud of it, and he let the fear fade into a background noise as he did what had to be done, as he did as much as he could without being discovered instantly, though his chances of survival were slim anyway. At least his body seemed to understand that and had apparently decided that at least if he was going to die within a few months, he should at least get some restful, if very little, sleep in that time.</p><p>So he slept, and then he worked, and then he saved some lives, he hoped. He had some close calls: Once, about a month in, one of his colleagues asked him what he was doing as he was sending off the letters with Ministry owls. Fortunately, at some point in the past three years Percy had learned to lie, so he made up an excuse: “Sending out warnings to apothecaries who have been caught breaking the new guidelines on obtaining Ashwinder eggs, a very important regulation to protect the Ashwinder from extinction, I personally advised the Minister on it”. He didn’t mention which Minister he was talking about – it had been Mr. Scrimgeour – or the fact that he hadn’t even listened to Percy’s explanation and instead just waved him off, authorizing him to phrase and sign off on the law himself (a great honour… or maybe he just considered all the rules that Percy loved talking and thinking about completely irrelevant and useless, just like everyone else). And of course he had sent off the warnings weeks prior, but she believed him and didn’t double check the letters, fortunately, because he had never been good at obliviating.</p><p> </p><p>About three months in, Mrs. Umbridge started getting suspicious – suspicious enough to mention the occasional disappearance of some “very important and highly classified” documents to Percy when he came to her office to discuss broom safety regulations. As always, he nodded along to what she said and agreed profusely where he could, still having an instinct to mould himself to the needs and wishes of authority, even with how he had been betraying all authority recently.</p><p>Then, a few weeks after this conversation, on the 17<sup>th</sup> of December 1997, he was discovered. Percy was sitting at his desk when Yaxley appeared in the doorway of his office, followed closely by Travers. He was confused for only a second until he spotted the letter in Yaxley’s hand. <em>Fuck</em>, he thought and was surprised at the swear word – he didn’t usually allow those, not even in his mind, but if there was ever a time for it, it was now. To cuss once more, silently, before he died. Travers looked grim but Yaxley had a sadistic smile on his face, looking satisfied, if still very threating. A moment passed and then Yaxley spoke: “Interesting, what we found when we intercepted one of your owls, Weasley.” He waved the letter in his hand. Percy was scared, his throat was closing up and he couldn’t speak. “Is this how you betray our trust, blood traitor?”</p><p>Travers just stood silently in the background, blocking the exit and looking at Percy in disgust. Percy didn’t know what to do himself. He was pretty sure there were only a few minutes left of his life – were they going to kill him right here in his office? Were his colleagues going to pretend they hadn’t noticed anything but never forget that this is how You-Know-Who dealt with disobedience? He hoped that at least his family would find out, he had left everything to them after all, in the will that he had written two days after starting his forgery business. But Death Eaters weren’t known for respecting the law or blood traitors’ wills so maybe he would be forgotten, maybe he would just fade out of existence and no one would ever know what became of him.</p><p>“Crucio!” the word ripped him out of his despair and erased all thoughts from his mind as he screamed in unimaginable pain. He felt like every cell in his body was burning, like he was being torn apart, like he was being pressed together by unbearable pressure. And it went on and on and on, forever. Then it stopped and he collapsed next to his desk, having fallen out of his chair at some point in the past minute, or hour – time had seemed meaningless while he had been writhing in pain. Yaxley laughed and then dragged him forward with a spell, until Percy was sitting in front of him on the ground, gasping and wheezing.</p><p>“Want another round, blood traitor?” the Death Eater asked. Percy whimpered, not knowing what the right answer was – he was quite certain his options were either <em>Crucio</em> or <em>Avada Kedavra</em>. Though he definitely preferred the inevitable Killing Curse.</p><p>However, Yaxley didn’t seem to be of the same opinion: “What, are you not even going to beg, Weasley? Come on, make this fun for me!”</p><p>And then the pain came again, and Percy thought it stayed longer this time – two eternities instead of just one. When it was finished he stayed curled up on the ground and tried to give Yaxley what he wanted. “Please stop,” he whispered, hoping that it was loud enough for his torturer to hear because he didn’t think he could speak any louder. He didn’t have the energy to check for Yaxley’s reaction, so he continued, raising his voice as much as he could, “Please, please, I’ll do anything.”</p><p>He didn’t even need to pretend, he would’ve begged even if Yaxley hadn’t asked him to. He had never been particularly dignified and he was definitely not above screaming and begging for mercy – anything to stop the pain.</p><p>It worked though, because, almost unexpectedly, the next word Yaxley spoke wasn’t <em>Crucio</em>. It was a hissed out <em>Avada Kedavra</em>. And then the world was gone.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Percy woke up in the Ministry Atrium. It was empty and silent, something it had probably never been in its entire existence, and it looked wrong somehow. He realized why as he was standing up and his gaze fell onto the golden fountain in the middle of the room – this was the old Ministry, from before You-Know-Who soiled it and turned into a nightmare. He shuddered at the thought of it.</p><p>Then he looked around, trying to observe his surroundings – trying not to think about the fact that he was dead, he had to be, and this was probably the afterlife (at least his afterlife wasn’t the new Ministry, at least he wasn’t in hell). He looked at the fireplaces, his way out of the building, and somehow he knew that was the way to death, to get where he was supposed to be after that flash of green.</p><p>Because he was dead. He was dead. Dead. He couldn’t be dead, not yet. There was so much he still needed to do. So many things to change at the Ministry – after the war, because it had to end, it had to end with You-Know-Who’s defeat. And so many more innocent people to save from Azkaban! It couldn’t just be over, he was not done fighting yet. He was Percy Weasley and he still had a lot to offer the world, even after being so, so wrong about everything, even after betraying his family…</p><p>His family! He couldn’t leave his family like this. He felt his heart clench (but that wasn’t possible because he was dead, he didn’t have heart anymore, but it felt like he did, it felt like there was a pain in his chest and when he thought of his family it became even stronger and in a way it hurt more than Yaxley’s <em>Crucio </em>had). He couldn’t bear to leave them while they still thought he was a prick, a traitor, a terrible, horrible person.</p><p>He sobbed and collapsed to his knees. Tears were running down his face (but he didn’t have a face anymore, he was dead, dead, dead) and he tried to remember the last time he’d cried, the last time he hadn’t shoved everything down and pushed through it in silence. He wondered, faintly, if he was grieving right now, grieving his own life, or if he was crying because of the fight, because of all the times he had run into his father at the Ministry and not known what to say, how to make up for being a terrible son, crying because of the mashed parsnips his siblings had flung at him and the spite in their eyes.</p><p>He imagined how his family would react when they heard of his death (<em>if</em>, he corrected himself, because they might never find out, might think that he had fled like a coward, had turned his back on them forever):</p><p>His mother would cry and hug her other children as tightly as she could when she saw them again.</p><p>His father… he would be sad, but only because of his wife’s grief – Percy couldn’t imagine him being particularly heartbroken at not having to see his son in the Ministry again.</p><p>Bill would probably just sigh in disappointment at his idiot of a younger brother – always the stupidest of the lot, believing anything authority figures said.</p><p>Charlie… Percy needed a moment to remember Charlie again, his laugh, his boundless energy, his sense of humour (not that all the other Weasley siblings besides himself didn’t have an amazing sense of humour). He imagined Charlie wouldn’t care very much, he had never been particularly fond of Percy, his most annoying younger brother.</p><p>And the twins, Ron, Ginny, he didn’t dare imagine what they’d think. He knew they’d never forgive him for all he’d done – they might even laugh about it, about Percy the coward, the inept fool being the first of them to die in the war, even though he hadn’t even fought in it like every other Weasley. A shame to the Weasley name, that’s what he was.</p><p>Bitterly he thought of all the times they had mocked and pranked him, especially the twins, but his youngest siblings had always laughed along, had never respected him. Of course they wouldn’t care about him dying, they had never really loved him anyway. Slowly, as his sadness gave way to resentment his tears subsided. He tried to calm himself, tried to chase away his dark, poisonous thoughts. They had gotten him into this situation in the first place, his own selfish and hateful mind was the reason he was exiled from his family.</p><p>In the calm that followed the previous onslaught of emotions, he tried to consider his feelings as rationally as possible, thinking about his anger, his shame, his self-hatred and how his death effected all of that.</p><p>He wasn’t sure how long he sat on the ground with his head in his hands, contemplating his emotions – which was just confusing, frustrating and incredibly pointless, really. He didn’t think he could really understand his own feelings, he preferred clear rules and authority instead - making his own decisions had never been his strength. Nevertheless, there was one thing that felt clear in his mind: he didn't feel like he could leave like this, he couldn’t live – he snorted at the irony of that – with himself in the afterlife if he couldn’t reunite with his family at least once more, apologize and earn their love again, if it was possible. He wasn’t willing to wait decades until they joined him in the afterlife – and he hoped with all his heart that it was going to take that long for any of them to die.</p><p>But since he was a wizard, he had an alternative option he could choose – even if he was terrible at decision-making and no one should ever allow him to make life-or-death decisions, but there was no one here to make this decision for him. He remembered the ghosts at Hogwarts and knew that no one wanted to end up like that. Every wizarding child was always taught that being a ghost was a terrible fate, that only the unwise chose to live that sort of half-life for eternity.</p><p>But Percy had never been particularly wise and he didn’t want to die.</p><p>***</p><p>Percy faded into existence in the middle of his now-empty office – right where he had died, he knew, and for a moment he remembered gasping on the floor and begging and <em>dying</em>. The first thing he noticed was the <em>lack of gravity </em>– it wasn’t entirely gone, he could still feel the slight tug of it, but he felt light, like a feather, like he could float in any direction he wanted to, into the ground, through the wall, to the moon, without any difficulty. Hardly surprising, really, since he didn’t have a body anymore.</p><p>Speaking of which – he looked down at himself and saw the floor, the floor through the opaque, milky mass that was his body – or the imprint of his soul in the mortal plane of existence or whatever rubbish wizarding society called it. He was really cussing too much in his thoughts, it wasn’t fitting for a promising Ministry employee – but he wasn’t a bloody prat of a Ministry employee anymore and there was nothing in the least promising about his existence, so he could swear if he bloody well wanted to.</p><p>Unfortunately, he was still wearing his Ministry robes, which felt very, very wrong (especially with the cussing). He didn’t know if he could change that, after all ghosts couldn’t change their physical appearance, of that he was certain. But he thought he’d seen the Hogwarts ghosts wearing different clothes – Ser Nicholas had been bragging about some special suit once, he remembered. So how did that work? Where did ghosts get their clothes from, did they have a wardrobe? Or did they just change clothes at will?</p><p>Percy shook his head at himself – he had more important things to worry about than his attire. He looked around, trying to discern how much time had passed since he’d died. The room was empty, his corpse nowhere to be seen, but otherwise it had remained unchanged. He could still see the paperwork he’d been working on lying on his desk, clearly no one had been here yet to remove all traces of his existence, so he couldn’t have been dead for more than a day. Since it was quiet in the building, he assumed it must already be late, meaning it had probably happened a few hours ago – so that’s how long he had been having his mental breakdown in the afterlife.</p><p>He decided not to contemplate that and the decision he’d made too much, instead trying to remain practical and calm about the situation he was now in. Where was he going to go? He had to get settled somewhere before deciding what to do with his (not) life. Where did ghosts usually reside?</p><p>Well, the only ghosts he knew were the Hogwarts ghosts, so it would make the most sense to go there, he thought. The memory of the school gave him a warm feeling in his stomach, it was the only home he still had since the Ministry had been poisoned and his family hated him. And he almost missed Ser Nicholas, even with his relentless whining he had always been pleasant and genuinely respectful towards Percy. This had always set him apart from most people in Percy’s life, even his younger siblings, his teachers, the authority figures he always tried to impress, never showed real respect or admiration towards him. His mother, some first years (for example Hermione Granger, he remembered – that hadn’t ended well, and shame filled him at the thought) and his 600-year-old house ghost had been the exceptions to the rule.</p><p>So, he decided to go to Hogwarts first. It was very far from the Ministry to the school, he realized, and he couldn’t Apparate because he wasn’t wizard anymore, was never going to cast a spell ever again (that was another thought he decided to ignore, because it felt like there was a hole in his chest when he realized his magic was gone). But despite his worries the only problem he had was finding the castle. Once he had spotted the train tracks of the Hogwarts Express he arrived at his destination within an hour, because he could fly, fast and without ever tiring, even though he’d never been athletic in the least, had always started panting within seconds of any strenuous activity. So this, flying as fast as he could without ever having to stop, was a strange feeling, freeing and delightful, except that he couldn’t feel the wind on his face, couldn’t feel anything on his skin or in his body anymore and he didn’t know how to deal with that. Like he wasn’t part of reality anymore, like he could only watch through a veil, but never touch, never feel the world again.</p><p> </p><p>There were Dementors hovering around the school, black shadows in the night sky, and that was he discovered the second advantage of being a ghost, besides having better endurance than even Oliver Wood: He couldn’t feel Dementors! That was almost worth dying for, really (except that it wasn't, at all, but at least he wouldn't have to relive <em>Crucio </em>and the parsnip incident and his family's dead eyes as they screamed with Scrimgeour's voice, every time he came across the Death Eaters' favourite pets). So he floated into the castle, through the walls, without being held up by anyone.</p><p>It was quiet and empty in the building, everyone was sleeping, but ghosts didn’t sleep, he just had to find them, wherever they spent their time. He floated along the corridors, through the walls, into the classrooms, feeling that somehow Hogwarts had changed in the past year, the air, the spirit of the castle felt tense and wrong. He spotted someone patrolling the halls twice, he assumed it was Amycus Carrow since he didn’t recognize him as any of the Hogwarts teachers, but he avoided being seen, passing through a wall as soon as he saw any movement. Finally, he ran into Peeves in a classroom, hiding the chalk in the drawers of the teacher’s desk, and he had never been so relieved to see the poltergeist before, causing mischief as always, something familiar in the now almost unfamiliar castle.</p><p>“Peeves?” he asked hesitantly, not sure how to speak to him not as a prefect but as a fellow ghost (although technically poltergeists weren’t ghosts, but close enough anyway). The poltergeist spun around, looked over him for a second, then smirked.</p><p>“A new one then? Did Voldemort off you?” he asked with glee.</p><p>Percy flinched at the name and Peeves scoffed, “You’re dead, are you still afraid of his name?” Then he giggled, “Ooh, I know you, you’re the perfect Prefect… Percy was it? The one without any sense of humour! Your twin brothers are funny though.”</p><p>“I know,” Percy muttered, the relief he’d felt at seeing Peeves seeping away.</p><p>“Soo, how did good old Voldy get you? Was there any torture at least?” The poltergeist rubbed his hands as he said that last part and, to Percy’s surprise, he felt tears spring into his eyes. Peeves had always riled him up easily in his school days, but at least back then he’d had power and confidence, he’d been a Prefect and good at school and had a family, but he was dead now, and Peeves held the upper hand in every sense and he hated him, hated him for reminding him of his family, his death, and the torture.</p><p>Suddenly Ser Nicholas appeared next to them, materializing out of thin air (could ghosts become invisible? He couldn’t remember ever having heard of that). He looked at Percy in recognition and a bit of sadness. “Percival! What sorrowful circumstances in which we meet again!”</p><p>He turned to glare at Peeves, probably having heard at least a part of their conversation, and the poltergeist waved his hand dismissively, “Please, take him, he’s one of yours anyway. I don’t know why it’s always <em>me </em>who has to babysit the newbies!” Then he disappeared through the wall with an elegant twirl.</p><p>Percy sighed in relief and willed the tears away (he hadn’t known ghosts could cry, but maybe they couldn’t, maybe they just felt like they were crying). Ser Nicholas looked apologetic. “He’s been grumpy this year with the staff changes, not nearly enough chaos for him… because of the new disciplinary measures, you know. He tries of course, but these people, they don’t have any respect, not even from us. They even use curses on him when he goes too far – on a poltergeist, imagine!”</p><p>Percy nodded in agreement, glad to be speaking to someone he was comfortable with, someone he knew how to respond to. “I’m all for rules and obedience, but that quite disrespectful, if not outright cruel. After all poltergeists are deeply magical creatures who are an important part of the location they haunt and their entire being is rooted in chaos,” he declared, feeling in his element.</p><p>“Quite right, Percival, quite right. Anyway, I’ll show you around if you’d like, introduce you to some of our colleagues and show you the places where we reside.” Percy nodded and smiled in gratitude. “Well then, follow me!”</p><p>He showed Percy rooms between the walls, where wizards couldn’t go, explained who liked to stay in which spots, where the “official” rooms of the different Houses were – though ghosts weren’t very strict about Houses, a lot of them hadn’t gone to Hogwarts and just picked a House they sympathized with or just ignored the system entirely. He introduced him to the ghosts they met along the way, though mostly it was just an exchanging of names before they headed off.</p><p>Percy realized that there were a lot more ghosts at Hogwarts than he’d met in his school days, some of them just didn’t move around the castle very much or disliked talking to the living, Ser Nicholas explained to him. That wasn’t very surprising, considering the amount of antisocial and unfriendly ghosts Percy had met in the past few hours.</p><p>He also asked some question about the technicalities of being a ghost: Could they become invisible? – Yes, but it was one of the few things that actually tired them out, they couldn’t stay invisible forever and it took practice to be able to do it for longer than five minutes. Percy tried it out and it almost came naturally, simply fading even more out of existence than he already was, though he couldn’t test the endurance part of it yet. Could ghosts cry? – Yes, in reality ghosts could go through all the notions of being alive, except for eating and sleeping.</p><p> </p><p>It was dawn when Ser Nicholas left him to get ready for breakfast in the Great Hall. Though he’d asked Percy to join him, he had had to decline, because Ginny would probably be there and he definitely wasn’t ready to face her yet – after the Christmas holidays maybe. So he settled in one of the hidden rooms and pondered on what to do.</p><p>He felt like he ought to sleep after such a long, incredibly eventful day, but ghosts couldn’t sleep. So how did they end their day? How did they work through their emotions, subconscious thoughts after the day? How did they take a break? This was quite possibly the worst part of being a ghost, he decided. He should be tired right now, and he was, because everything felt so very wrong and he just wanted to escape into unconsciousness but he couldn’t, and it almost physically hurt, except it <em>couldn’t </em>physically hurt because he was dead.<em> Dead dead dead</em>, he chanted in his head for a few minutes – if he thought of nothing else it was almost like sleep (except that it wasn’t, at all).</p><p>Then he started practicing invisibility – maybe if he did it long enough, he'd pass out from exhaustion.</p><p>He didn’t, though, because he was ambitious and wanted to be good at everything he could, so he trained, properly, for the next few hours, setting himself the goal of learning to stay invisible for half an hour by the end of the week. He found at least some pleasure in honing a new skill, having some sort of purpose in his afterlife (a purpose that didn’t involve his family, or even thinking about his family, at all).</p><p> </p><p>It was probably afternoon when a young-looking female ghost floated into the room. He was certain he'd seen her before, back when he'd been attending Hogwarts, but they'd never been introduced. “Hi,” she greeted him, smiling, “Who are you?”</p><p>Percy was taken aback for a moment, he hadn’t met very many genuinely smiling ghosts until now. “I’m Percy Weasley, I’m new here,” He introduced himself, then added, to clarify, “I just died yesterday.”</p><p>“Oh, well, my condolences,” she responded empathetically, “You used to go to school here, right? One of the Gryffindor redheads?”</p><p>Percy smiled slightly, being a recognizable member of the Weasley Clan, like they just belonged together, had always been one of his favourite things about his family – it reminded him that he <em>was </em>part of the family, though he often didn’t feel like it, because at least he had the same hair as everyone, even if he didn’t share their personality traits. Now it was bittersweet, because it also reminded him of his mistakes and losses – but it still felt good to think that some things would never change, he would always remain a redhead like his siblings.</p><p>“Yeah, that’s me. I remember seeing you as well, but I don’t think I ever caught your name.” She grinned, seeming amused at his roundabout way of asking after her name, and he felt a bit proud – aside from his conversation with Ser Nicholas, this was the first genuine social interaction he’d had in a long time. And he was managing to be polite but not too distant or slimy or talkative, judging by her expression at least, a rare feat for him.</p><p>“My name’s Emily Thomas. And wait, let me guess which one of the Weasleys you are… you’re the smart-ass Prefect kid, right?” Percy almost flinched, and any good feeling he’d had about this conversation flew out the window, as he was reminded again of his lack of social skills and all the things wrong with him in general.</p><p>Emily seemed to have a better social sense than him though, because she quickly backtracked, “Ay, mate, don’t take it personally, all right? I’m rude to everyone, it’s just the way I talk.” Percy felt his chest loosen up again and smiled at her in understanding, if he was honest he could absolutely imagine ghostness turning him into a raging ball of fury within weeks if he didn’t find a way to replace sleep, so he could hardly blame Emily for being a bit of an arse.</p><p>She continued, “But I promise, I’m good company otherwise, in fact I dare claim that I’m the most and possibly only sane ghost in this entire castle.”</p><p>Percy snorted, “Yeah, I definitely believe that.”</p><p>“Well, you seem quite alright as well. Want to go flying outside?” she asked, smiling. Percy smiled back. He honestly couldn’t remember the last time he had felt the kind of giddiness he felt now, at the prospect of a real offer of friendship from a ghost. Because Emily seemed charismatic and funny and kind, in her own way, she had distracted him from his terrible fate more than anything else had in the past day, or even the past months, really. And he desperately needed a friend right now, had needed one for a long time, but especially now that he was dead, and a new species.</p><p>“Absolutely.”</p>
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<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>During the following three days Percy and Emily spent a lot of time together, talking, flying (high above the castle, through the clouds, over the surrounding landscape) and training Percy’s endurance in invisibility. He was rapidly improving, not having to sleep or work definitely left a lot of time for practicing (not that he’d slept a lot back when he’d been alive, but he’d worked himself half to death and without that there was nothing to do with his time). He learned that Emily had died about twenty years ago in a mugging gone wrong on the 13th September 1978, at the age of 24 (a simple <em>Adava Kedavra</em>, just like him, but without the torture beforehand). She was muggle-born and a Ravenclaw, though she couldn’t care less about Hogwarts houses (they’d had a few passionate discussions about that, as Percy came from a family of proud Gryffindors and took house loyalty very seriously). He’d also told her how he had died, the forgery he’d done for muggle-borns, and he was pretty sure that was what had truly convinced her to be friends with him, despite him being annoying, narcissistic and boring, because after that her smiles were warmer (even if she was still rude and mocking, but he’d gotten used to that pretty quickly).</p><p>Emily also taught him a lot of things about how to live as a ghost. She explained that she reserved at least two hours every day for “sleep” – zoning out, letting her mind run free, in her favourite room, where other ghosts knew not to disturb her. Percy adopted the same ritual, floating next to her during her sleep hours and trying to relax his mind until he wasn’t conscious of even doing it. It worked well enough as a replacement for sleep, as long as he managed to calm his thoughts.</p><p>She told him that there were actually quite a lot of ways in which ghosts could change their appearance. While they couldn't change their body itself they could change everything else and mostly cover up the things they wanted to. They could will any clothing onto themselves, though it usually only worked if they’d seen the outfit before, because they couldn’t imagine it vividly enough otherwise. They could change their hairstyle and hair colour – the trick to that was not to think of your hair as part of your body but as an accessory, and therefore not bound to the soul. And, an option Percy hadn’t considered at all, they could reimagine their face with make-up, to cover up eye bags for example.</p><p>There was one hidden room in the castle with a mirror, Merlin knows how it had gotten there, and after changing his Ministry robes into more casual clothing, Percy decided to make use of ghost-make-up as well, to make himself look a bit less… dead. Though nothing could change that he was incredibly skinny, his hands bony and his cheeks hollow, and there was a haunted look in his eyes that just wouldn’t leave, no matter how long he willed it to disappear, staring at himself in the mirror.</p><p>Aside from that, they talked about books. Since they couldn’t read anymore – not being able to pick up a book or turn the pages made that rather difficult – at least they could discuss literature. These conversations were always very fruitful, as they had both been avid readers in their youths, with a considerable knowledge of both wizarding and muggle classics. Paired with an insatiable thirst for knowledge and a passion for debating - well, most of the ghosts of the castle thought they were barking mad, which was ironic, because they did proudly claim the title of the Two Sanest Ghosts of Hogwarts.</p><p> </p><p>Percy was truly grateful for her friendship, as much as he appreciated Ser Nicholas, the man wasn’t great company for longer periods of time. However, there were some things he didn’t talk to her about, that ate him up from the inside, as his thoughts often did. The most prevalent issue was Ginny – he’d seen her in the hallways, always turning invisible the moment he did, and it had pained him more than he could put into words, seeing her, much older and more mature than she was in his memories. She was social, fierce and kind, protective of her friends and everyone else in need of protecting, defiant toward the Carrows, and he was so incredibly worried for her because she was the type of person that died in wars (unlike him, but he’d died anyway, so maybe it didn’t mean much – he hoped, because the Weasley family didn’t have very good chances of survival otherwise).</p><p>He loved her, and seeing her made him happy because he hadn’t been around her in a very long time, but it came with an ache in his heart and a whirlwind of complex emotions, not to mention the risk of being seen and recognized, so he avoided her and everyone else he knew, anyone who could recognize him and tell Ginny. He tried to help her from the background though – he’d joined the ghosts’ rebellion at Hogwarts during his second night in the castle, a group that called themselves GOD (Ghosts On Duty), led by Alexandra Rockwood, who clearly held a strong grudge towards her family. Emily was part of the group as well, of course. GOD guarded the Dumbledore’s Army members when they were out at night, spraying graffiti and doing whatever other incredibly reckless activities they engaged in. The ghosts floated around the hallways invisibly and warned the students if anyone came near them – they had a chain-warn-system, so the one night Percy had participated he hadn’t had to talk to any of the DA members in person. He was glad he could be involved in their rebellion and Ginny’s life somehow, with his presence still remaining unknown.</p><p>It was nice to have something productive to do with his infinite time, something to take his mind off being dead, but Christmas break was going to start tomorrow and most students would be gone for a while (including Ginny, which was a relief) – he had no idea what he was going to do then. Just like he’d needed work to be able to ignore all of his issues and pain when he’d been alive, he needed something to do now that there were even more issues he desperately wanted to ignore.</p><p>***</p><p>It was the evening of the 20<sup>th</sup> December, a few hours after the students had left, when Percy ran into Peeves again, in one of the ghosts’ rooms. Percy was hanging out in the room alone, eyes closed, trying to zone out and push away his worries, when Peeves’ voice interrupted his thoughts. “Oh, hello again, ickle Percy!” Percy opened his eyes, willing a friendly expression onto his face, he didn’t want to antagonize the poltergeist. “Hello Peeves, how are you doing?” he inquired. Peeves ignored the question. “So, tell me, how come you’re a ghost now? Scared of the big bad afterlife?” he taunted.</p><p>Percy narrowed his eyes. “No, I just didn’t want to leave my family,” he responded.</p><p>Peeves laughed, “You became a ghost for your family? Now that’s just ridiculous!”</p><p>“Ridiculous? I love my family!” Percy was starting to raise his voice.</p><p>“Seems like a pretty selfish kind of love if you’re going to make your family responsible for throwing away your chance at afterlife. Fat load of good it’s going to do them,” Peeves shot back.</p><p>Percy was spluttered, speechless, “What- What do you know about love and family, you’re just a glorified sadist!”</p><p>Now the poltergeist looked vicious. “I do know that most parents don’t want their little brats to end up as ghosts, and then to blame <em>them </em>for it? Now that’s just cruel!”</p><p>“Well it’s better than me being dead and gone, isn’t it?” Percy asked, almost desperately.</p><p>“Oh sure it is. Having a half-dead son must be fantastic, never getting the chance to grieve and let go properly but never getting the chance to hug him again either! Truly a bombastic experience, I’m certain!”</p><p>“Fuck you!” Percy seethed and spun around, flying out of the room. He regretted the foul language he’d used almost instantly but <em>how dare he say those things? </em>Percy knew he was a narcissistic person, and sure, his reasons for becoming a ghost had been mostly selfish, but surely his family would be glad he wasn’t completely gone, right? This couldn’t be another thing on the long list of actions he needed to apologize for. Of course, this was all assuming his family still loved him and would mourn him at all, which he was quite certain they wouldn’t, aside from his mother. No, Percy decided, Peeves was completely in the wrong here, and anyway, it was none of his goddamn business why Percy had become a ghost! Bloody poltergeists, always sticking their noses where they didn’t belong!</p><p>Still fuming, Percy floated through the dark halls and then out of the castle, somehow ending up on the Quidditch pitch. He’d calmed down somewhat by then and suddenly he was overwhelmed with a feeling of nostalgia as he flew between the loops and over the stands from where he used to watch his brothers play. And Oliver of course, Oliver Wood, his militantly Quidditch-obsessed roommate, who he’d had a crush on for a significant portion of his school time. Of course there had been Penny as well, but he still wasn’t certain if his emotions toward her had been platonic or romantic in nature. The sex had definitely been better with Oliver, he thought, and was surprised at the longing he felt at the memory – he hadn’t thought of sex in a long time but Hogwarts brought the memories back. It felt bitter, because that was another thing he would never do again, and he’d barely even explored his body, his preferences, his sexuality. It was mostly his own fault, too, because once he’d started working at the Ministry he’d ignored most of his body’s wishes, be it for sleep, food or sex. Not to mention dating or anything regarding romance – he’d disregarded that aspect of his life completely, having “more important things” to deal with.</p><p>He would’ve dated Oliver, back when he’d been at Hogwarts, and maybe even afterwards, if Oliver had been interested. But he had made it pretty clear that he had no desire to do so, even though Percy had broken up with Penny back in Seventh Year because of him, because he wasn’t a cheater but he most definitely had wanted to make out with his roommate as much as possible. And so the memories still hurt, thinking of the kissing, the sex and the pining, how it had started and how it had ended.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>It was nearly midnight and Percy was trying to finish his Arithmancy homework, which was due in only a week and he had very little time this week because he had to study for Transfiguration and Charms, since he was behind on some of the practical aspects and McGonagall had told him to work on his wand movement, which was unacceptable, really, especially as Head Boy. The Ministry would only take the best of the best!</em>
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  <em>Which was why he was deeply annoyed by Wood’s (rather attractive) face shoving itself between him and his Arithmancy textbook every two minutes to drag his attention back to the Quidditch strategies he was monologuing about. Percy was usually quite good at ignoring people, especially Wood and his infamous Quidditch rants, but after the dreams he’d had of his roommate last night (not for the first time, of course, but it was becoming harder and harder to ignore) his presence felt very distracting.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Finally, he had enough of Oliver’s ramblings about how “the Harpies have a great Seeker, but they need to learn that that simply isn’t enough when you’re playing against the likes of the Falcons…” and, on some idiotic primal instinct, he kissed him, to finally shut him up (and because the dreams were haunting him, so it wasn’t his fault, really). To his surprise, Oliver didn’t pull back and instead they went on to have a fantastic make-out session, which was decidedly more fun than Arithmancy (though he’d never admit it out loud).</em>
</p><p>
  <em>They didn’t talk about it afterwards, but Percy broke up with Penny the next day, because he wasn’t a cheater and he probably should’ve done that as soon as he’d realized he had a crush on Oliver – which had been during the time she’d been petrified last year, though of course he’d missed her terribly, but mostly he’d just missed her friendship, not the sexual or romantic aspect of their relationship.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>And then it happened again, and again, and that time it went further and Percy had sucked him off, and then the next time they’d had actual, penetrative sex, which had been amazing. Of course, it couldn’t last – after their third time having sex, Percy had worked up the courage to ask Oliver out on a date, to solidify their relationship, and Oliver had looked at him like he had grown a second head. “Percy… I’m not gay”, he’d said softly, almost pityingly, which was – excuse the language – bloody bullshit, but he couldn’t say that, so he’d just mumbled something under his breath and fled the room in humiliation.</em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>And that had been that, they had fallen back into their (sex-free) routine and had never talked about it again, and Percy had gotten over it, after a while, and had completely forgotten about it once he’d gotten his job at the Ministry. So in reality he’d never had a real relationship, Penny barely counted, he wasn’t even really sure if he was into women at all. And ghosts didn’t date so he was never going to have a real relationship and he really wanted to see You-Know-Who die for that, and die for the Ministry career he was never going to have, his mother’s cooking which he would never taste again, his family members’ hugs which he was never going to feel again and for being a fanatic, murdering, blood-purist dictator, of course.</p><p> </p><p>It was dawn when Percy headed back into the castle, having spent the night pondering his life and his Hogwarts days on the Quidditch pitch. He headed to the room where Emily usually spent her time – she called it the Parlour, because it had couches and a table and was a nice place to hang out in, as opposed to most other ghost rooms, Emily had made sure of that. Since she was friends with some of the house elves of castle, who were the only beings that could apparate within Hogwarts, they had helped her get old furniture and decorations that weren’t being used anymore into the room, to make it look more welcoming – even if ghosts didn’t have any practical need for furniture.</p><p>This was the room from where she built up her “social empire”, as she called it – mostly, it wasn’t Hogwarts ghosts that she invited into her territory, but guests who were stopping by, who were significantly better company. She had told Percy that there were actually quite a lot of travelling ghosts, who used their death to explore the world and had all sorts of interesting stories to tell. Some of them she only met once, but she had quite a few regular visitors who she had gotten acquainted with over the past 20 years. She was quite proud of the large, international network of friends that constituted her empire – even if she could barely communicate with half of these friends because they didn’t speak English, or spoke a version of English that was so old it was completely incomprehensible.</p><p>Predictably, Emily was lying on one of the couches when he came in. “Hey, Percy, where’ve you been? I’ve missed you!” she greeted him. He snorted at that. “What? I’m serious, you’re my saviour, dear Percival, the only person in this entire castle who’s capable of leading a normal conversation without incessant whining and hourly mentions of murder,” she said, grinning. “My main conversational partner used to be the Bloody Baron before you came around, you know,” she added in stage whisper.</p><p>He raised his eyebrows in amusement. “The Bloody Baron? The man who even Peeves is scared of?”</p><p>“Yeah, I mean he’s not much of a talker, but a great listener, just so you know.”</p><p>“I’m not convinced”, Percy shook his head, not sure if she was being serious.</p><p>“No, really, he has some anger management issues of course, but I did advise him to go to a Mind Healer, that might help him.”</p><p>“A Mind Healer? For a ghost? Next you’re going to advise me to befriend Peeves!” he laughed.</p><p>Emily rolled her eyes at that. “Don’t see why it’s so ridiculous, most ghosts are in dire need of therapy, really, but you wizards never understood much about therapy anyway. And yes, I absolutely would advise you to befriend Peeves, he’s the only one of us who can actually move things. Any ghost with half a brain knows to be on good terms with him.”</p><p>That… actually made quite a lot of sense, which was rather unfortunate. “Uh, well, I’m pretty sure I’ve blown my chances with Peeves,” he muttered.</p><p>“Why, what did you do?” So he told her about his fight with the poltergeist.</p><p>Emily looked thoughtful for a moment before speaking, seeming like she was considering her words carefully. “Look, I know Peeves isn’t particularly tactful when it comes to emotional things like that, but he does have a point… When I died, the main reason I decided to stay was because of my sister, who is more important to me, than, well, anything in the world. And I… what I did wasn’t fair to her, and wasn’t really fair to myself either. I haunted her for years, but she couldn’t see me, since she’s a muggle, you know. So I asked one of my witch friends to tell her that I was still here, a few days after my funeral, and when she did, Kate became completely obsessed, naturally. She started going to these muggle ghost summoners, who are all frauds that make money off of other people’s grief. They told her I was saying things I had never said, and I kept telling her that they were lying, but she couldn’t hear me…”</p><p>Her voice broke suddenly, and Percy saw tears in her eyes. He wasn’t sure what to say to comfort her but she wiped away her tears before he could do anything, and kept talking.</p><p>“I don’t even know how long that would’ve went on if she hadn’t met Peter three years later – some banker assistant or whatever the job is called, completely regular guy, I never understood what Kate saw in him, but they fell in love, got married within a year and she moved on from me, stopped going to the seances, stopped talking to me – or herself, really, since I could never respond. The only times she talked to me anymore was when she went to visit my grave. At first, I was bitter, I hated the man who stole all her attention from me. But she became much happier and… that was more important than anything in the end. So I had to move on as well, which is when I came here, and… I’ve been happier since then. As much as I miss her, it was better for both of us to move on, you know?”</p><p>She paused, then, before turning to Percy, looking serious as she met his eyes. “It’s different for you, of course, because your family are wizards and there’s nothing standing in the way of you still having a relationship. It’s just that… you are dead, Percy. And I think it will be difficult for your loved ones to accept that if you’re still around. So, that’s just something to consider, even if you can’t really change it and you don’t even have to, just… think about it, okay?”</p><p>He nodded mutely, her words running through his mind, <em>you are dead, Percy, you are dead, you are dead, dead, dead</em>. Her gaze followed him as he floated out of the room, but she made no move to stop him, for which he was grateful. He needed time to think.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Chapter 4</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>He went out to the Quidditch pitch again, he felt like he could think more clearly there than anywhere in the castle, where there were psychopath Death Eaters roaming the hallways. He wasn’t sure where to start unravelling all the emotions and thoughts that Emily’s speech had provoked in him. There was of course the very obvious issue, namely that he was dead. And he knew that, really, it was just that he hated being reminded of it. He hated thinking about what it meant to be a ghost. To never be able to hug his family again, never taste his mother’s cooking, never cast a spell…</p><p>And that wasn’t the only thing: He had always learned that ghosts were just a simulation of a person’s soul, that they weren’t capable of development and change, that they were cursed to always, eternally be hung up on the same issues. Like the way Ser Nicholas was still obsessed with joining the Headless Hunt, even after centuries of rejection, which clearly wasn’t normal human behaviour.</p><p>On one hand, he couldn’t imagine that happening to him – he didn’t feel like his mind now was fundamentally different than it had been when he’d been alive, like it was somehow completely incapable of development. And it made no sense anyway, how would that even work? If your surroundings changed, you had to change as well, you couldn’t just stop learning new things! On the other hand, it was what all the creatures’ handbooks said, and their authors definitely knew what they were talking about more than he did.</p><p>Though, now that he thought about it, being referred to as a “creature” didn’t sit well with him at all. Was this how werewolves felt? And vampires? And house elves? And… well, every other self-conscious being that wasn’t a wizard? It was ridiculous, really. He was still Percy Weasley, the wizard, just without the body. The same way werewolves were still just wizards, but with a… medical condition? He couldn’t help but feel irritated at wizarding society, on behalf of all of the magical “creature” community. Who were they to tell him that he wasn’t capable of emotional development? He would emotionally develop if he very well wanted to! How would they know how his brain worked if they’d never been ghosts themselves? And the only ghosts they’d talked to before reaching that conclusion were probably the insane ones, like the bloody Bloody Baron. Quite frankly, the entire thing was preposterous!</p><p>With a start Percy realized that his face had pulled itself into a self-righteous frown and he had started to gesticulate passionately while he’d been silently ranting about the idiotic wizarding world. Embarrassed, even though no one had been there to see the spectacle, he stuffed his hands into his pockets and sat down on the ground. He needed to stop distracting himself: There was a problem at hand, and solving problems was the only thing he was skilled at. The problem wasn’t that he was dead – it wasn’t a problem if it couldn’t be solved, that was his philosophy – the problem was that his family would have a hard time with him being a ghost.</p><p><em>Assuming they even give a damn</em>, a voice in his mind whispered. Percy shoved it away. Whether or not they cared didn’t matter, because he couldn’t change it, the only thing he could do was make sure that if they did care, they would have the opportunity to grieve his death properly. It wasn’t even that difficult – all he had to do was notify them about his death somehow without them finding out that he was a ghost. Of course it would be easier if the Ministry had already told them, as was their job, but he had thought about it a lot in the past days and he was quite certain that the Ministry wouldn’t reach out to his family of their own accord.</p><p>So he had to do it himself – with the help of a teacher, probably. Professor McGonagall seemed like the best option, really, even though she was kind of intimidating. He’d always felt like she didn’t like him very much – and she probably didn’t, she preferred people like Harry and Ron, who really lived up to the Gryffindor name. And he had never been very good at Transfiguration either, that had been one of his biggest insecurities in school. But out of all the teachers he trusted her the most, so it had to be her.</p><p>Percy wasn’t an idle person and he didn’t want to think about his family and his death – his two least favourite topics – any longer, so as soon as he’d made the decision he headed back to the castle, making his way to Professor McGonagall’s office. He paused in front of the door, not sure how to make his presence known, since he couldn’t knock but he couldn’t simply go barging in either. “Professor?” he finally called though the door.</p><p>“Yes, come in!” the response came a few moments later, and Percy floated through the door, steeling himself. It took a while for Professor McGonagall to notice his presence, as she was bent over some papers, probably expecting to hear the door opening before anyone entered. When she did look up she froze, instantly recognizing him.</p><p>“Oh, Mr. Weasley.” She looked older, then, than he had ever seen her – she <em>was </em>old, of course, but she’d never <em>seemed </em>old. She did now, looking at him with an incredibly tired look in her eyes, and he understood, he really did, because the world was so tiring right now. There was a constant sadness and wrongness in the air, and it weighed so much it was a miracle they didn’t all just collapse under it. He tried to convey that as he looked back at her, to reflect the sadness and exhaustion in her eyes.</p><p>“Hello, Professor,” he said awkwardly, “It’s nice to see you again.” Feeling self-conscious he stuffed his hands into his pockets (he never would’ve done that back at school, he thought with a flash of shame, but to be fair he hadn’t worn jeans back then).</p><p>She forced a smile. “I’m glad to see you as well, would that it were under better circumstances.” She sighed, then asked, “What happened to you, Mr. Weasley? If you don’t mind me asking.” Percy hated the dejected tone of her voice.</p><p>“I was caught forging documents, and, well, the Ministry has a new way of dealing with that kind of thing,” he joked, trying to lighten the mood.</p><p>This time her smile seemed almost genuine, amusement lacing her voice as she replied, “Document forgery? Really? Never would’ve expected that from you.”</p><p>He smiled wryly. “Well, I wouldn’t have expected the Ministry to start murdering muggle-borns either, and yet here we are.”</p><p>She looked like she understood, now. “Is that why you were forging documents?”</p><p>“Uh, yes, I was forging passports for some of the muggle-borns who were being investigated by the Commission, so they could leave the country. But, uhm, I actually came to ask for a favour.”</p><p>“Well, what can I do for you?” He appreciated that, the no-nonsense, straight down to business response. This was hard enough as it was, no need for emotional talk.</p><p>“I need someone to tell my family that- that I’m dead. I… think it would be better if they didn’t know I was a ghost for now, since it would in all likelihood hinder their ability to grieve and accept my passing. And I was hoping maybe you could reach out to them, tell them how I died and everything, because I highly doubt the Ministry will.” He looked at her expectantly, his fists clenched in his pockets.</p><p>She nodded in understanding. “Most certainly, Mr. Weasley. I won't enjoy being the bearer of bad news, but I understand why you would prefer it this way,” she smiled, and looked very old again.</p><p>“Thank you so, so much, Professor!” Percy tried to convey his immense gratitude, knowing that he couldn’t thank her enough. He felt light-headed with relief. “I’ll leave you to it, then,” he said, nodding at the pile of homework in front of her and turning around to leave.</p><p>McGonagall’s voice stopped him, “You did well, Mr Weasley.” He froze, staring at the door in silence. “I mean it, what you did, helping those muggle-borns, it was very brave. You probably saved quite a few lives. You've done a lot.”</p><p>“Not as much as everyone else in my family,” he mumbled, and regretted the thoughtless words instantly.</p><p>Her voice was almost gentle when she replied, in a way he didn’t think he’d heard it be towards him before. “Has anyone in your family given their life for the war?”</p><p>He finally turned around to look at her, surprised by her phrasing. He had never thought of it that way. “You did well, Percy,” she repeated, looking him in the eyes – the way you would look into the eyes of a person who was still alive. It felt different to the way most living looked at him now, like she was looking <em>at </em>him, not through him. And she had called him by his first name (it made him feel seen).</p><p>He felt like he could cry – if anyone could grant him absolution from his sins in life, it was Professor McGonagall. And his family of course, they more than anyone else, but he couldn't think of them, not now that they were going to get the news soon and what did that even mean for them? For him? Would they care? Would they cry? He wasn't sure if it made him cruel to hope they would.</p><p>“Thank you, Professor,” he said, a ghost of a smile on his lips.</p><p>When he left the room he felt lighter than he had since the day he’d died. He had made sure his family would be taken care of and Professor McGonagall had told him that he hadn’t died for nothing, that she was proud of him – not in so many words, but that was what it had meant to him.</p><p>***</p><p>The day after his talk with Professor McGonagall he made peace with Peeves, on the urging on Emily (who was very impressed with the way he’d handled the situation). They had a rather awkward conversation, during which Percy admitted with great pain that Peeves had had a point in their fight, and then Peeves forced him to actually <em>apologize </em>for calling him a glorified sadist – which was only proving the statement to be true, in Percy’s opinion, because nothing pained him more than apologizing, especially to the undeserving.</p><p>As he headed back to the Parlour, he noticed a boy in Ravenclaw robes sitting on the ground in the hallway, back pressed against the wall and curled in on himself, like he was trying to make himself invisible. Percy felt the inner Prefect rise up in him and he stopped in front of the student and spoke softly, “Hey, kid.”</p><p>The kid looked up at him with wide, tear-stained eyes. He looked around twelve or thirteen. “Hey,” Percy said again, concerned, and knelt down in front of him. “What’s your name?” In his years as Prefect, then Head Boy, he’d gotten used to always asking for names first when encountering crying children, just so he’d know how to address them, and also because it was a way to get them to calm down before talking about the problem at hand.</p><p>“George,” the kid said, looking uncertain. <em>Like my brother</em>, Percy thought.</p><p>“Hello George, I’m Percy,” he introduced himself, “Want to tell me what’s wrong?” he asked, smiling in what he hoped was a warm and comforting manner (that had always been the hardest part, back when he’d been at school, trying to come off as comforting, not like he was lecturing).</p><p>George hesitated for a moment before stuttering, “W-well, I have detention with Ca- Professor Carrow tomorrow a-and…” This was interrupted by a sob and Percy really wished he could pat the kid’s back or put an arm around him to comfort him, but from a ghost that probably wouldn’t be much help.</p><p>“-and my mates say that, that they use <em>Crucio </em>in detention and I don’t want to be tortured!” Here the kid dissolved into tears, he was practically wailing, and Percy tried to keep looking kind. Kind, warm, friendly and not annoyed in the least at the child that was probably going to draw the entire school, including the Carrows to them, which wouldn’t end well for anyone… Where was this kid’s survival instinct? – Oh Merlin, and where was his own empathy? For a kid that was scared that his teachers’ were going to put him under the Torture Curse, really, how had Hogwarts come to this? And when had he become this heartless? Or had he just always been a terrible person… <em>Shut up</em>, he thought, at himself mostly, but also a little bit at George.</p><p>“Well, how would your mates know that? Has it happened to them?” he asked.</p><p>“Well… no, but the older students say that they have to practice the Cruciatus Curse on people who have earned detentions in the Dark Arts lessons,” George explained.</p><p>Percy had a hard time hiding the horror he felt at that – how could they have turned Hogwarts into this? The only home he still had? He hated them. George was blinking up at him expectantly, like he was waiting for Percy to tell them that it would all be alright.</p><p>Before saying anything, Percy sat down next to the kid, all annoyance gone, instead just feeling deep sympathy for him. He tried to consider what rational, truthful arguments he could find to comfort George.</p><p>“Well, which year are you in, George?”</p><p>“Third.”</p><p>“Look, even if they do torture the older students like that, they wouldn’t do that to a third year, I’m quite certain. Have you learned the Cruciatus Curse yet?” George shook his head mutely. “Well, then there’s no reason for anyone to practice it on you, right? Nevertheless, detention with the Carrows probably isn’t going to be a pleasant affair, I won’t lie to you about that. But I doubt they’ll torture you,” Percy put as much conviction into his voice as he could muster, looking George into the eyes – they were blue (they had colour, unlike Percy’s now) and still red, but not filled with tears anymore, thank Merlin.</p><p>George looked into his lap. “Okay,” he mumbled. He seemed to have calmed down a little, but he was shivering now – it was probably cold in the hallway, though Percy couldn’t feel it. He suddenly remembered a conversation he’d had with Alexandra earlier that day.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>Percy was surprised to run into Alexandra Rockwood in Amycus Carrow’s private chambers. He’d gone in because he had been looking for Carrow - he liked to know where the Death Eaters of the castle were at all times, so he could avoid them, because the sight of them made him angry (and scared, like he’d been when Yaxley had stepped into his office with the letter in his hand) and he was afraid they’d mention something to Ginny if they identified him as a Weasley. He hadn’t expected to find any ghosts here, especially not doing… whatever it was that Alexandra was doing right now. She was standing in front of Amycus’ wardrobe, staring at his clothes with immense hatred and looking like she was concentrating very hard.</em>
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  <em>He watched for a moment, trying to analyse the scene in front of him, but he couldn’t figure out what in Merlin’s name she was doing, so he asked. “Good morning Alexandra, what are doing, if you don’t mind me asking?”</em>
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  <em>She looked up at him, seeming rather indifferent. “Trying to set this Death Eater scum’s clothes on fire,” she replied, like it was the most natural thing in the world.</em>
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  <em>“Oh… and how do you plan on doing that?”</em>
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  <em>She narrowed her eyes at him. Even though she was a rather small, middle-aged lady, who seemed like she spent the day knitting (she most definitely didn’t), she still managed to be more intimidating than some of the more murderous looking undead inhabitants of Hogwarts. “The poltergeist claims ghosts may control the temperature around them if they so wish, so I’m trying to make it hot enough that the clothes start burning. If I succeed I’m setting my great-great-nephew’s house on fire next,” she declared, “Why, do you have a problem with that?”</em>
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  <em>“No, absolutely not, please invite me to watch if you ever do manage to set the Rockwood Manor on fire,” he said, going for a wink and failing miserably, both of his eyelids twitching awkwardly. Penny had spent five minutes laughing about his lack of winking skills once, he remembered – he wondered if she’d still laugh like that, once she got out of Azkaban (he knew she’d been sent to Azkaban, seeing as she was muggle-born, he’d seen her waiting for her trial in the Ministry, had asked about the sentence afterwards) – if she ever did get out, if You-Know-Who didn’t win the war.</em>
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  <em>Alexandra nodded at him, then went back to glaring at Amycus’ cloaks, clearly done with the conversation. Percy thought it prudent to leave, trying not to think about Penny as he did (and failing miserably).</em>
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</p><p>Now he pondered on whether or not Peeves had been lying about ghosts being able to control temperature. Probably, but it was worth a try. So he tried, tried to think about heat, about a crackling fireplace, about the burning sun in Egypt, tried to remember what warmth felt like.</p><p>George was still shivering.</p><p>Percy sighed. Clearly, this wasn’t working, he would have to convince the kid to head back to his Common Room soon. “What did you get detention for, anyway?” he asked, hoping to distract George.</p><p>“Well, in Muggle Studies Professor Carrow was saying that muggles were stupid and that- that the Dark Lord would enslave them and everything, because they needed to be taught their place and… I don’t know what else she said, but she was lying, because I have muggle friends, I always play football with them in the holidays, and they aren’t stupid at all. They know all kinds of mathematical stuff and- and there’s this Einstein who they always talk about who sounds very smart, and I asked my parents and he was a muggle, so I told Professor Carrow about Einstein and that muggles weren’t all stupid and then she gave me detention for being misguided and blind despite my pure blood…” George trailed off, looking like he was on the verge of crying again.</p><p><em>Good job, idiot</em>, Percy thought at himself. “Well, you’re right, Professor Carrow is lying, muggles are just as smart as wizards, they just don’t have magic.” Percy sighed. “But Death Eaters don’t like to be contradicted so just… keep quiet next time, maybe? There’s no use in talking back.” (His family, his brave, brave siblings would disagree, he knew, but he couldn’t go around telling Third Years to risk their well-being for symbolic resistance and pride.)</p><p>“When will it end?” George asked suddenly, looking up at Percy like he knew, like he could see the future, like being dead meant that he was the ultimate authority on the truth. Well, he wasn’t, but he was twenty-one years old and he could at the very least give hope to a child.</p><p>“I don’t know, George, but Harry Potter is still alive, still fighting, and he is going to defeat-“ he hesitated only for a moment- “Voldemort.” (Voldemort didn’t deserve him being afraid of his name, what was he going to do? Kill him? That ship had sailed.)</p><p>He continued, ignoring George’s flinch at the name, “I believe that with all my heart – I would bet my life on it if I wasn’t already dead. Potter, and his friends, and all kinds of incredibly brave people are out there fighting for us, for you and for me and for the muggles, and for everyone else. Voldemort doesn’t stand a chance.”</p><p>He smiled at George, and he was surprised to realize that he meant most of it – he probably wouldn’t bet his life on anything, because that was just plain stupid, dying was easy enough without throwing your life away for no reason, but he had hope. He believed in Harry Potter, in his family, in Professor Lupin and everyone else on their side and he couldn’t imagine Voldemort ever defeating that, not when even Ravenclaw third years were standing up to his lies. (He decided to ignore the memory of Ministry workers, his colleagues for the past two years, silently cowering as Scrimgeour was tortured in front of them, not saying a word as muggle-born after muggle-born was on trial and sent to Azkaban in the same building they worked in, stubbornly not acknowledging the disappearances of more and more of their colleagues.)</p><p>To his surprise, George smiled back, and he didn’t look like he was going to start wailing any second anymore, which was a relief. So Percy decided to do the responsible thing. “Now come on, George, you look like you’re freezing to death, so let’s get you back to your Common Room. I’m sure you have homework to do,” he said while standing up.</p><p>George stood up, but at the last sentence a look of horror crossed his face. “It’s the holidays!” he protested.</p><p>Percy could barely supress a smile. He felt sixteen again.</p><p>“Well, that’s no reason to neglect your studies, Mister! Now come on!”</p><p>And George, while still looking mutinous, followed him.</p>
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<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Chapter 5</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Percy spent his Christmas with various Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw second, third and fourth years, courtesy of George, who had promptly decided that Percy was his guardian angel (and also the writer of all his homework, though Percy was working on dispelling that illusion – he would gladly help with homework but he wouldn’t write it <em>for </em>him). But he couldn’t deny that George and his friends running to him asking for assistance with their homework felt flattering, and he did enjoy showcasing his extensive knowledge on practically all school subjects. They also asked plenty of questions about muggle-borns, which Percy, given his expertise on the matter (he’d been raised by Arthur Weasley after all), attempted to answer as well as he could, trying not to think of his father in the process. Ultimately, he convinced Emily to help him, since she was muggle-born herself and knew a lot more about muggle technology and lifestyle than he did, which was why the two ghosts spent the majority of Christmas Day and the following days in the company of George’s extended friend group.</p><p>It was nice to have something to do with his time, and Percy very much enjoyed being respected and needed. He felt like being a ghost definitely helped with the former, back when he’d been alive most students hadn’t treated him half as well as his newest acquaintances did. Though that might’ve had to do with his personality more than anything else, he <em>had</em> changed significantly since he’d graduated. Or maybe it was because it was the middle of the war and they were all scared and in a greater need for support than the previous generations had been. Either way, he liked helping the kids with their homework and educating them on the things their current education was lacking. It felt meaningful and it was the only thing he could do, really, to help with the war effort now that he was dead.</p><p>As he spent his days surrounding by screeching kids (even though there were only so few of them, the majority of parents not wanting to spend any time apart from their children, not to mention all the missing muggle-born students, they still managed to make a lot of noise), it was only in the nights when he still relived the Cruciatus Curse and heard Scrimgeour’s screams and saw his family’s hateful faces. Or their empty, dead faces or, possibly even worse, their bright, laughing faces as they ate dinner together at the Burrow, opened up Christmas presents together, were happy together (without Percy, never, never loving Percy). It was almost funny how the nightmares had stopped the few months before he died, only to come back and haunt him again when he was dead. And he couldn’t even sleep, but that didn’t stop them – the flashbacks, the images his mind created, still felt just as vivid as if he were right there, as if Yaxley was still standing in front of him, laughing, <em>Are you not even going to beg, Weasley? Come on, make this fun for me, </em>and then pain, pain, pain, and then green and then darkness.</p><p>And then it had been gone, everything <em>gone </em>and it didn’t even make sense, because he was still here. He was walking the Hogwarts halls like he wasn’t dead, like nothing had changed. But was he really? Was this really Percy Weasley, Gryffindor Prefect, (Big) Head Boy, Junior Assistant to the Minister for Magic? Or was this just a shell, just an illusion? Just what was left of him after losing his family, after living in shame for years, after not sleeping, ever (and he would never sleep again), after being scared, after being chased through his life like a terrified deer, no time for anything, only work, work, work, and stupid regulations and stupid, useless paperwork? After pain, so much pain, after <em>dying</em>? He must have lost something along the way, everything, really, and sometimes he wondered how he still existed after life, life and war and death, had chipped away piece after piece from him. It had taken his magic… he didn’t know how he could still <em>be </em>after that.</p><p>But he could still help kids with their homework, could still discuss literature with Emily and he could still have nightmares, even if he couldn’t sleep, so that had to count for something. And maybe, one day, he’d be sitting in the Burrow with his family again, and feel loved. Maybe.</p><p> </p><p>This routine was interrupted by Emily’s New Year’s Eve party, which Percy was the tiniest bit apprehensive about – besides Alexandra, Ser Nicholas and two of Hogwarts musician ghosts it was three of Emily’s non-Hogwarts friends that were coming and he wasn’t good at meeting new people in a non-work-related context. But Emily wouldn’t take no for an answer, she wanted him to socialize and get drunk – which apparently was possible, he had learned, there was a potion – Emily called it Ghost Whiskey – that had an inebriating effect on ghosts through its smoke. What had surprised Percy even more was that Slughorn, just like every other Hogwarts Potions Master before him, brewed the potion for the Hogwarts ghosts when they asked for it – Emily had laughed at his surprise: “Of course they provide us with the means to get drunk regularly, they don’t want a repeat of the Ghost Rebellion of 1524.” And that made quite a lot of sense once he thought about it, Percy had heard enough about the incredible failure that was the Prohibition to know that their society didn’t take lack of alcohol very well, of course that would be true for ghosts as well (though he personally had never really understood the appeal, he’d been drunk maybe once or twice in his life and while it was certainly pleasant he didn’t particularly enjoy losing control over himself).</p><p>It turned out that there were four non-Hogwarts ghosts coming after all, because when Sophie Hugo, a middle-aged French woman who laughed loudly at her own jokes and proudly declared that she had witnessed the French Revolution in person within the first five minutes of any conversation she had, showed up at around half past nine, she came accompanied by a new friend, Aaron.</p><p>“Oh, yes, and this is my companion, Aaron! He’s new, only dead a week!” Sophie introduced him, like she was advertising a new product she was selling. Aaron waved at them, not saying a word, he seemed to be around the same age as Percy and a bit shy. Sophie and Emily started catching up then, and Percy and Aaron were left staring at each other (or everything else except for each other, really) awkwardly. Percy tried to muster the other ghost inconspicuously – he was wearing a floral-patterned shirt, which even Percy noticed, even though he rarely paid attention to clothing. And he looked good, skinny and with messy hair, not usually Percy’s thing, but he was definitely attractive.</p><p>Finally Aaron broke the silence, speaking for the first time since he’d arrived, “This castle is really cool, do you live here?” He had a slight accent, drawing out some vowels more than he was supposed and pronouncing a bit differently. It was a nice accent, he made English sound unique, gave it a different melody.</p><p>“Um, yes, I went to school here, and now I’m living here again – well, for the past two weeks, because – you know, I’ve only been a ghost for two weeks,” Percy tried to explain, then, to salvage the conversation from the awkwardness of having to contemplate their deaths, he changed the topic, “Where are you from? I’m assuming not the UK if you’ve never been to Hogwarts.” He didn’t want to imply that Aaron sounded like a foreigner, even if he did, a bit.</p><p>“I’m from Budapest, Hungary. Our buildings don’t look like this at all, they’re more… modern, even the magical ones,” he said, smiling – looking genuine, despite the awkwardness – then added quickly, “but I like it here too.”</p><p>Percy smiled back and they were silent again, but it wasn’t an uncomfortable silence. Aaron seemed nice and… very normal, for ghostly standards – it instantly made Percy feel more comfortable. When he’d been introduced to Sophie he’d started to worry that he’d spend the night surrounded by historical relics who couldn’t hold their mouths for more than a minute, but Aaron seemed like a safe haven from that insanity.</p><p>Then Sophie turned back to them and the next twenty minutes Percy and Aaron spent listening to her monologuing about grandiose French authors (Emily, being the traitor that she was, had fled with Ser Nicholas to go to the kitchens “to look for the whiskey” and Alexandra had promptly left Sophie’s vicinity, though not without insulting the “ridiculous narcissism and idiotic language” of the French first). So the baby ghosts were left to their own devices, and Percy and Aaron became well-acquainted through shared eyerolls and looks of exasperated amusement.</p><p>Finally, Emily returned with the other two new arrivals: Orlando and Angel, both of whom were the type of people to leave lasting impressions on everyone they encountered, though it was hard to put a finger on what exactly caused them to be so memorable. Angel (which was short for Angelica) was an American… teenager, by the looks of it, with a large afro that almost succeeded in covering the bloody wound on the back of her head. She was beautiful, by all standards, but really it was her confidence that sold her looks. And while there weren’t many ghosts who really looked like they could enjoy life and truly have a good time, she definitely did.</p><p>Orlando wore a large cloak and vivid red lipstick (which was especially striking because on ghosts colours mostly turned pale and grey). Percy hadn’t been sure if the ghost was a man or a woman, and Orlando’s explanation didn’t help. “Neither,” they’d said smoothly, looking incredibly charming and intelligent while making no sense. They’d proceeded to explain that while they’d been born a man they didn’t identify as either gender, and preferred to be referred to with gender-neutral pronouns. It was all very modern for someone who’d drawn their last breath 100 years ago, but Percy didn’t question anything they said – they were practically oozing confidence and intellect, and Percy’s mind instantly identified them as an authority figure.</p><p>Orlando added that their name was a reference to Virginia Woolf’s Orlando, and while Percy didn’t understand much about gender neutrality he was pleased to be able to tell them that he at the very least understood that reference – Virginia Woolf had been among the first muggle authors he’d ever read.</p><p>Two of the house elves who had brought them Ghost Whiskey, Twinkle and Pea, decided to stay for the beginning of the party too, and Percy found them quite exciting. They could explain a lot about the inner workings of Hogwarts, the technicalities of the castle that Percy had always had many questions about. And they seemed to feel honoured that someone was so interested in their opinions and experiences, so soon Percy and Aaron were wrapped up in a (largely elf-sided) conversation about vegan recipes and the lack of modern equipment in the Hogwarts kitchens. They talked differently to him now than they ever had while he’d been alive, he realized (he’d met some of them during his nightly visits to the kitchens – it was something even the most rule-abiding of Prefects did every now and then) – they were more open, more willing to talk about their lives.</p><p>But still, at one point the conversation veered into dangerous waters, when the topic current Hogwarts regime was brushed upon. A scared look crossed the elves’ faces their voices became hushed and if the Carrows were capable of torturing children Percy didn’t want to imagine what they would to house elves – he hadn’t even thought of that until now. They seemed reluctant to say much about it, though, and Percy steered the conversation away from the Death Eaters, feeling his hatred for them bubbling silently inside him all the while.</p><p>Nevertheless, the night was shaping up to be more enjoyable than his usual habit of sitting around, contemplating life and experiencing flashbacks to… things he’d rather forget about, every other minute. He was starting to feel the effects of the whiskey as well, the world becoming a bit hazy – he didn’t have much of a choice in that, since every ghost in the room was effected by the smoke. It still surprised him when it actually happened – it seemed illogical for there to be a way for just the <em>soul</em>, no body or magical core or anything else, to get drunk.</p><p>He said as much to Aaron, who was now the only one sitting with him on the couch – the two house elves had just left, going back to work, Angel and Sophie were floating on the other side of the room, having a rousing (and rather heated) discussion about the colonial politics of France, while Orlando was engaged in a – seemingly delightful, though Percy couldn’t understand much of it over Sophie and Angel’s raised voices – conversation about modern music with the Hogwarts ghosts (though Alexandra wasn’t contributing much, simply standing next to them and looking mildly irritated, as usual).</p><p>“It’s magic,” Aaron grinned at him in reply to his complaint about the impossibility of Ghost Whiskey, like magic didn’t have to make any sense. It absolutely did, there were rules to magic just like there rules for everything else in the world.</p><p>But Percy decided to ignore that train of thought for now, instead focusing on Aaron, who he didn’t know much about yet, except that he was Hungarian and had a bright and infectious grin. Percy didn’t smile very often, but even he had a hard time supressing a smile when Aaron laughed. He’d laughed very hard at the house elves’ discussion about one of the pots in the kitchen, which was clearly cursed according to them but they couldn’t agree who had cursed it and why, and had started listing off various, contradicting theories which were all varying degrees of ridiculous. Aaron had found them wildly amusing, had fallen into bouts of laughter about it, throwing his head back when he did, and his wild, unkempt hair had bounced with the force of it. Percy had watched and wondered what Aaron had died of, why he was a ghost, but that probably wasn’t the best question to ask a stranger.</p><p>“So, where’d you go to school?” he asked instead.</p><p>“Oh, I went to a muggle school, so you’ve probably never heard of it.”</p><p>“Really? So you didn’t even learn magic?” Percy was confused, he didn’t understand why a wizard wouldn’t go to wizarding school, even if they were muggle-born.</p><p>“I did, I went to a course on weekends where we learned the basic spells and rules of magic and such – it’s not uncommon for muggle-borns not to quit muggle school completely in Hungary, but maybe it’s different here in the UK.”</p><p>Percy was suddenly embarrassed by his first reaction – that made perfect sense and of course the schooling system was different in other countries, he’d just never considered it. “Yeah, I’ve never heard of people doing that here but that sounds interesting, so you learned about physic and philosophy and… psychology and things like that?”</p><p>Aaron seemed very amused by that. “You’re telling you didn’t learn psychology and philosophy? That seems stupid, why wouldn’t wizards need that just as much as muggles?”</p><p>Percy reluctantly admitted that he didn’t really know what philosophy and psychology were, really, which led to Aaron giving him a full introduction into the muggle school curriculum – with specific focus on philosophy, which he’d been studying at a muggle university until, well, a week ago. This in turn led to a discussion about the merits of universities, which didn’t really exist in the wizarding world – Aaron found that absolutely ridiculous, going so far as to call the wizarding world antiquated and “stuck in the middle ages”.</p><p>Percy tried his best to defend the wizarding world’s honour but he had to admit that, when compared to the muggle world, it did seem to have some flaws. Well, really, you didn’t have to compare it to anything for it to have flaws, but the things Aaron told him about the muggle world (and not just the educational system) definitely put things into perspective.</p><p>Alexandra joined in on the conversation as well – shit-talking the entirety of the wizarding world was definitely her cup of tea, considering that she hated everything in it. Probably would’ve hated everything about the muggle world as well if she knew anything about it, but to Aaron’s great fortune, because no one wanted to be Alexandra’s opponent in a debate, she didn’t. Their passionate discussion, and especially Alexandra’s well-aimed jabs at the wizarding world and Percy of course, quickly drew the entire party to them.</p><p>Unsurprisingly no one in the room held much love for the wizarding world (Sir Nicholas and the two musicians might’ve been an exception but they’d left a while ago to join the Fat Friar’s New Year’s party), and Percy was left alone in his rather half-hearted defence of the wizarding world. It wasn’t as if he didn’t agree with their criticism, no, he liked listening to it, wanted to hear about everything that could be improved upon (he still had that dream, of changing the system for the better, of rising up in the Ministry and actually making a difference, even though the dream was dead now, as dead as he was, it was just hard to let go). But he still felt the need to defend the world he had been raised in, had sworn his loyalty to, had worked in for years (and it had failed him, miserably, and had failed hundreds of others). It meant a lot to him, and it had made him who he was now (though, arguably, he wasn’t much). And especially Hogwarts he felt the need to defend.</p><p>“Well, maybe psychology and maths are useful subjects,” he said, replying to Emily’s mockery of the Hogwarts curriculum, “but all of the subjects we do have are important for a wizard or witch’s education, we can’t just replace them. Imagine if students didn’t learn about ghosts and wouldn’t know anything about the creatures they spend all their school day around, for example.”</p><p>Angel laughed. “I’m not sure if that’s a good example, mate. The bullshit wizards make up about ghosts… I only recently heard about some scientific paper, if you can call it that, that explained that ghosts were incapable of emotional development and moving on from things, which is simply ludicrous!”</p><p>They all nodded in agreement (even Sophie, who hadn’t gotten off to a great start with Angel). But that was wrong… “But that’s just how it is, right?” he asked, wondering if this was just them being in denial about their true nature. “I mean, that’s how I learned it in school as well – ghosts are dead, so we can’t progress further than what we were like while we were alive.”</p><p>Orlando leaned forward, looking Percy in the eyes. “Well, do you feel like you’re incapable of changing?” they asked.</p><p>Percy didn’t have to think much about that, he’d thought about it enough already, but it still… <em>had </em>to be wrong. He shook his head anyway.</p><p>Angel took over again, “I personally think this is just the way for magical folk to blend out that our existence threatens the entire meaning of death as we understand it. And to scare children away from being a ghost, because it’s not like being a ghost is particularly enjoyable in and of itself, I think we can all agree on that.”</p><p>Percy nodded along with everyone else this time. He glanced over at Aaron for a moment and saw the same sorrow, the same grief on his face as he felt and felt a little less alone, among all these ghosts who’d been like this for a while, who had – well, moved on, actually, from being dead, and that… that kind of disproved that they were incapable of development, didn’t it?</p><p>But Angel wasn’t done, there was a gleam in her eyes as she continued, “And I understand why they think that, I mean look at some of your neighbours here, the Bloody Baron or what you call him, and even respectable Sir Nicholas. They’re all veery hung-up on things they’ve had centuries to contemplate. But that makes sense, even from a living perspective, doesn’t it? If you’re someone like Sir Nicholas who loves life and really doesn’t want to die and then you’re executed by some idiot who’s not even capable of doing it correctly and now you have to spend eternity as ghost, not being able to eat, sleep, interact in any way with the physical world and then you can’t even join the club with the “cool kids” that you really want to be part of, so even your social life is limited… It’s no wonder he’s still hung up on that, it fucking sucks.”</p><p>Percy glanced at Alexandra for a moment – with all the hatred she held towards the world and especially her family she was definitely one of the more obsessive representatives of their species as well, he wondered how she felt about the conversation. But her face looked indifferent, though she was clearly listening.</p><p>“Not to mention that we don’t have anything else to do with our time than brood on things,” Orlando added.</p><p>“Yes, exactly! And then things never really change much for us, because we don’t die, we don’t age, our friends don’t die, our enemies don’t die, and we’re eternally stuck, never being able to do all the things we loved doing again. So, it makes sense that some of us go insane, right? But that doesn’t mean we’re entirely incapable of development – the world is changing, and we’re changing with it. How else are we able to talk to Nicholas, whose English should be barely comprehensible to us, since he lived multiple hundred years ago? How come Sophie can speak English even though she never learned it while she was alive?”</p><p>Finally, Angel seemed done, lowering her hands, which had been gesturing wildly in the air throughout her speech. Emily grinned at Percy, “Convinced now?”</p><p>“Yeah, it… makes sense. But do you think Sir Nicholas could… snap out of it somehow?” he asked, his tipsiness making it easier to admitting that he might be wrong and moving on to a slightly different topic.</p><p>“Yeah, I don’t see why not,” Angel replied, “I mean I think we all have the potential to turn obsessive when we become ghosts, I feel like if someone decides to… give up on their afterlife to be, well, this,” she gestured at herself, “they usually have a ton of issues to work through, and then the trauma of dying and of being dead, which fucking sucks, doesn’t really help. But some of us get lucky and find a way to get over the largest issues.”</p><p>She shrugged, then explained with a half-smile, “I had a therapist, after I died.”</p><p>Orlando laughed, “Really? There has to be a story to that.”</p><p>“Yeah, I mean I met her a week after I died, in the city I lived in and she took me under her wing. She was a ghost herself, and she had been a therapist in life. She was obsessed with therapizing everyone around her because her daughter had committed suicide and she felt like it was her fault for not paying enough attention, so tried to make up for it by, well, paying attention to everyone else. Didn’t help <em>her</em> much, but she was a damn good therapist, helped me work through a ton of shit with my family and the stuff I had a hard time moving on from. And then at some point I decided to leave my home city and explore the world and meet people, and I’ve been travelling for over 15 years now. It definitely helps to change things up regularly and have some excitement in your life, you know?”</p><p>She looked excited, and for a moment Percy considered it, travelling around for the rest of eternity, but the thought didn’t attract him. He wasn’t like that, he wasn’t wild and adventurous, he didn’t like change, he liked routine and relative calm, and he liked his home country. Running across the world wasn’t the solution for him.</p><p>Orlando seemed to agree, because they threw in, “Well, I’m not much a traveller myself, but I’ve found my own way to live this life – and it <em>is</em> a life, I believe that, because it’s not the heart-rate that defines the creature, but the spirit, and I think we all have a lot of that. And while many don’t feel that way, I don’t regret becoming a ghost. My existence wouldn’t have been complete without this part. I spent my life dissatisfied with myself, and it took a couple of decades for that to change. I guess you could say I was born in the wrong generation, and becoming a ghost fixed that.” There was an airy smile on their face as they declared that last part.</p><p>Percy was fascinated – that was a refreshing perspective, Orlando had just offered a completely different thought on the matter of being a ghost. It was very enlightening, thinking of this as a continuation of life, rather than just some faded memory of it.</p><p>Orlando continued, “This is the age of drag queens, of homosexuals, of the gender revolution! This generation taught me that identity and gender aren’t black or white, showed me how I fit into the world, how I could feel most comfortable in my skin. Had I left the world in 1929 I would’ve forever thought I was a man, simply a maladapted one. But I found myself in death! And then these narrow-minded peasants try to tell me I’m incapable of development!”</p><p>(They definitely had a flair for the dramatic.)</p><p>There was silence for a moment, and Percy never found out how the conversation would’ve continued because Peeves flew in and yelled, “Happy New Year, ghosties!”</p><p>The room burst into cheers, everyone wishing each other a happy new year.</p><p>“When did the clock strike midnight?” Orlando asked once they had quieted down.</p><p>“Only two minutes ago,” Peeves declared, “you should feel honoured I brought the news so fast, I still have to visit a hundred more ghosts, since none of you own watches.”</p><p>He grinned, looking a bit red in the face, like he was drunk – which would explain the sudden kindness that had possessed him to play messenger.</p><p>“Well, thank you, Peeves,” Emily smiled at him, “you’re welcome to stay with us.”</p><p>“Oh no, like I said, there are still plenty of people to warn that the great year of 1998 has arrived!” Peeves called, and then dove out through the wall again.</p><p>“Well…” Angel straightened up from where she was floating above the couch, “We better get going, Orlando and I are invited to a New Year’s Party on Cape Verde, and we wanna get there before it’s midnight for them. But it’s been fun with you guys! I hope I’ll see you again next year!”</p><p>She gave them all a dazzling smile, linked her arms with Orlando’s, who curtseyed at them, and then they flew out.</p><p>Sophie was leaving as well, going to a New Year’s party in New York, and soon it was only Emily, Percy and Aaron left.</p><p>“Soo, how did you like it, Perce?” Emily asked him.</p><p>Percy smiled, tired from all the talking, the buzzing effect of the alcohol fading. “It was fun. You were right, the people were nice.” He looked at Aaron as he said that.</p><p>“Oh yeah, you looked like you were enjoying Orlando’s monologues as well,” Emily commented, amused.</p><p>“Yes, I mean, they’re very cool and had a lot of interesting things to say,” Percy explained, embarrassed that Emily had noticed that he admired the other ghost.</p><p>“Yeah, they’re exactly what you want to be like, aren’t they?” she mocked, “I should ask them to mentor you in the high arts of snobbery and smart-assery.”</p><p>“Hey, they’re not a smart-ass, they’re just very educated and intelligent,” Percy defended Orlando.</p><p>Aaron grinned at him. “I’m pretty sure they called you a peasant.”</p><p>“Oh, not you too! They didn’t call <em>me </em>a peasant they called-“</p><p>“McGonagall a peasant,” Emily finished for him, “And Hagrid. And also Sprout. Take your pick out of the entire educational staff of Hogwarts who are responsible for what the students are taught about ghosts. Also, did you see their lipstick? Now if that’s not showing off, I don’t know what is.”</p><p>Percy snorted, “You’re just jealous.”</p><p>“I mean, yeah, but they’re still a show-off.”</p><p>They laughed for a moment, the mood still light and cheerful, and then Aaron changed the subject. “I would like to stay at Hogwarts for a while, if that’s alright with you. I like it here, it seems very different and interesting and you guys all talk funny. Very posh and stuff,” He grinned at them, his eyes, though dull and grey, seeming very bright.</p><p>Percy laughed. “Is that enough of a reason to live under a terror regime lead by a genocidal maniac?” he inquired.</p><p>“Honestly, I’d like to help as much as I can. I couldn’t just go back to Hungary now that I’ve seen what’s going on here,” Aaron said seriously.</p><p>Emily smiled at him, she always appreciated bravery and dedication. “I completely agree, I’m very glad you’re staying. We definitely need all the help we can get, even if it’s just to boost morale or take care of the children.”</p><p>Percy nodded in agreement. “I can show you around, if you’d like,” he offered, then.</p><p>Aaron smiled. “Yes, that would be great, this place is huge and… full of magic, I’ve never seen anything like it.”</p><p>“You guys go ahead, I’m going to check in on the Fat Friar’s party,” Emily declared.</p><p> </p><p>Once they were out in the hallways, just the two of them, Percy felt a bit unsure. He didn’t know how to talk to Aaron, especially now that the effects of the alcohol were fading, and he imagined the other ghost didn’t think very highly of him since their discussion about muggle versus wizarding world.</p><p>Again it was Aaron who started the conversation, “So, you look up to Orlando, huh?”</p><p>“I mean yes, they’re pretty cool,” Percy said awkwardly, hoping that Aaron didn’t find him ridiculous.</p><p>“Sure, but you’re cooler,” Aaron smiled at him, eyes practically glowing in the dark hallway, “you don’t have to try to be like anyone else.”</p><p>Percy was very glad ghosts couldn’t blush (at least he hoped so). “Thank you,” he mumbled, “that’s-that’s very nice.”</p><p>He smiled and silence fell again until they reached the Great Hall, where Percy began the great tour of the castle – and it was truly a great, and very long, tour, because Percy took all educational activities very seriously and had also read <em>Hogwarts: A History </em>thrice.</p><p> </p><p>When Percy lay down much later that night, letting his thoughts wander, for once it wasn't his family' empty, dead eyes that haunted him. Instead his mind was filled with dreams of Aaron's eyes, milky white and pale, but glowing, like there was a light behind them, and of wondering what colour they had been in life.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Soo, there were a lot of original characters in this chapter, that might not be everyone's thing but there just aren't enough good canonical ghost characters in my opinion, and Percy definitely needed a talk about what it means to be a ghost. In the books and on Pottermore it's always implied that ghosts are unable to move on from things and can't really change from how they were in life, but I didn't want that to be the case in my fic, so this is how I decided to change it.</p><p>But don't worry, the Weasley family is going to start playing a more active role soon. ;)</p><p>Regarding Orlando: I have this headcanon that, as a general rule, ghosts are very accepting of all sorts of identities and mentalities because there are so many of them from different ages and cultures, and a lot of them have lived through multiple centuries and seen how everything they thought was normal changed, so they don't really question anything anymore. Which is why everyone uses correct pronouns for Orlando and accepts their identity without much thought, even though most of them have never even heard of non-binary people before (it is the 90's after all). </p><p>Also, for those who didn't understand where Orlando's name comes from: it's referencing Virginia Woolf's "Orlando: A Biography" (which is an amazing book btw), where the main character, Orlando, is born a man and turns into a woman in the middle of the story. It was published in 1928, so it doesn't really have much of a concept of transgender or non-binary people, but it questions traditional gender binaries a lot, which is why I thought it would be fitting for a non-binary ghost who lived in the beginning of the 20th century.</p><p>In case anyone was wondering, the spelling of Aaron's name is anglicised because the story is written from Percy's perspective and I doubt he'd know the Hungarian spelling of Aaron.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Chapter 6</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“I want to be a philosopher!” George announced.</p><p>They were sitting in the Ravenclaw common room, Aaron, Percy, George and Leon, a Gryffindor Third Year and George’s oldest friend, who had returned from the holidays three days ago, along with the rest of the students. Though they were supposed to be practicing Charms, George kept going back to his new favourite topic, which was philosophy.</p><p>Aaron and George had hit it off instantly when Percy had introduced them on New Year’s. It had started with Aaron asking George about the different colours students wore, because he hadn’t really understood the house system, even though Percy had explained it to him fleetingly during his Hogwarts tour. George, appreciating the opportunity to show off some knowledge to older, more experienced and actually dead people, had launched into a long explanation, or rather rant, about the Hogwarts houses, criticizing the system at every turn. Aaron had been in complete agreement of course, he didn’t have a very high opinion of the British wizarding world. And when George had asked him if they had a house system in Hungary as well, he instead took the chance to educate the youngling and introduced him to the world of muggle universities, where “it’s your subject that determines who you’re grouped with, not random aspects of your personality”.</p><p>George of course showed great interest in the topic, he was always mesmerized by anything that had to do with the muggle world (Percy tried not to think too much about who that reminded him of) and soon Aaron had started lecturing him on philosophy, explaining the concept of it and the most important people and theories. It took around two days until George decided that he wanted to study philosophy as well, just like Aaron (he refused to listen to Percy’s objections that it probably wouldn’t even be possible without a muggle education). And now he wouldn’t shut up about it.</p><p>But Percy was glad that they got along, it helped to have someone else there to help with the kids, especially now that the entire school was back and suddenly Percy had an entire horde of children running after him, asking him for help with homework, what muggles were like, what death was like, what being a ghost was like and Leon had even asked him for dating advice yesterday. That had definitely been a sign that he’d reached the lowest point of his existence (no, the lowest point definitely hadn’t been the Christmas of 1996, a.k.a. the Mashed Parsnip Incident).</p><p>What he was less glad about, however, was that Ginny looked a lot worse for wear than when she’d left, which was saying something, considering that the Carrows definitely hadn’t gone easy on her before the holidays. He decided to ask Professor McGonagall about it, because not knowing what was wrong was keeping him up at night, and maybe if he knew, he’d be able to help.</p><p>He quickly excused himself from the fight Leon and George were having about future professions (Leon felt deeply betrayed that George had apparently abandoned their plan of working in the Department of Mysteries together), Aaron watching them with worried amusement and headed to Professor McGonagall’s office. This time he didn’t bother knocking, floating in uninvited and clearing his throat to grab her attention. She peered at him from above her glasses, “What can I help you with, Percy?”</p><p>Suddenly he felt embarrassed about simply barging in, her gaze bringing back all of his Prefect and teacher’s pet instincts (even though he was pretty sure she had never appreciated his attempts at sucking up), but he explained his worry anyway.</p><p>“That couldn’t possibly have anything to do with the fact that she just found out that one of her brothers is dead, could it?” she asked when he was done, raising her eyebrows.</p><p>Oh. That did make sense, he just… hadn’t thought Ginny would really be sad about that. She’d been there, laughing as her brothers threw food at him, and she would’ve had to know how much that hurt him, how it felt like they were killing him, like he’d never be okay again, never feel like he was worth something, like he was loved by anyone.</p><p>Professor McGonagall seemed to take pity on him, continuing, “The other reason might be that her best friend hasn’t returned from the holidays, and that means… well, nothing good, that much is certain.”</p><p>Percy perked up, glad to hear a different explanation, something he could do something with. “Her best friend?” he asked, not sure who she was referring to.</p><p>“Luna Lovegood. The blonde Ravenclaw girl.”</p><p>“Oh, right. Well that’s… unfortunate.” He remembered Luna from when he’d been at school, remembered defending her back when he’d been Head Boy, when he’d run across groups of Ravenclaws laughing at her for one reason or another and telling them off, feeling deep empathy and perhaps a sense of connection with the girl who was a bit of a loner, who was mocked for being herself, who couldn’t fit in with the rest of them. She’d changed a lot since then, was a DA member now and had a strong support system, but now she was… gone. Yes, it definitely made sense why Ginny looked so miserable.</p><p>He wanted to comfort her, he really did, but… he <em>couldn’t</em> (and he wasn’t sure if it was because he wanted her to have time to move on from his death, or if it was because he was still too ashamed to face her and the rest of his family), he’d have to trust Neville and her other friends to help her – they’d probably be better at it than he was anyway, he hadn’t really spoken to his little sister in years. Having made that decision he said good-bye to Professor McGonagall, wishing her a nice day, and then made his way back to the Ravenclaw common room, resolving to make George and Leon finally do their homework, whatever it would take.</p><p>***</p><p>That evening Percy and Aaron were sitting in the Parlour in comfortable silence, and Percy finally worked up the courage to ask, “What colour were your eyes when you were alive?” They hadn’t talked much about their lives or dying yet, and it was difficult to breach the topic, knowing that it was still fresh for both of them, but he wanted to be able to imagine Aaron’s eyes the way they were supposed to be, not deathly grey like they were now.</p><p>“Oh, they were brown,” Aaron said, looking down into his lap. Then, after a moment, “It’s weird, that they’re gone. The colours, I mean. I keep forgetting that you can’t see it anymore.”</p><p>Then he looked up again, and smiled at Percy, “Well, you’re an exception. Your hair is amazing.”</p><p>Percy grinned. He was quite proud of his hair. Colours didn’t completely disappear on ghosts, but they usually paled enough that you couldn’t really tell what their hair, eye or skin colour had been in life. But even death couldn’t erase Weasley hair, and Percy was still recognizably ginger, just like his siblings, and he was incredibly grateful for that – another piece of him would be missing otherwise.</p><p>“How did you die, if you don’t mind me asking?” Aaron asked suddenly.</p><p>Percy glanced at him, surprised. They had avoided talking about that until now.</p><p>He was even more surprised at how easy it was to tell Aaron about what had happened, about the horrible months in Voldemort’s ministry, about the terror (Scrimgeour’s screams, the random disappearances everywhere, the hushed voices and furtive glances of his colleagues who he’d never gotten along with because he was too much of a suck-up for them, but in the end it had been him who had done something against the Ministry, the only one who had stood up to Umbridge and Yaxley and Thicknesse and Voldemort, in his own way), about the Cruciatus Curse – all the things he hadn’t talked to anyone about because he hated remembering, because he didn’t think anyone would want to hear about it. But he wanted Aaron to know, he felt like Aaron could understand it, could understand him, if he told him about everything. Aaron just listened intently, but looking at the wall across from them, not at Percy, which made it so much easier. It was only when Percy was finished that he glanced at him, smiling like he knew how much it meant, for him to know about these things, like he knew that he didn’t need to say anything, because listening had been enough.</p><p>Percy resolved to talk to him about his family, too, soon, if it was this simple.</p><p>“What about you?” he asked.</p><p>“Um, it was a very… stupid death. I was in a bar, waiting for my date and a fight broke out and somehow, I don’t even know how, I was shoved and hit my head really hard on a wall and I just… died,” Aaron explained, rubbing the back of his head like he could still feel where it happened, even though Percy had never noticed a visible wound there, not like the one Angel had.</p><p>Aaron noticed him looking and added, “You can’t see it, it didn’t bleed that much I think, I died of the brain damage, not the wound.” He shrugged, looking miserable, and Percy understood, because that was a pretty pointless way to die. At least he had died for <em>something</em>, died for a cause, in a war, which was almost heroic, really, but to be a victim of a bar fight you weren’t even involved in? That was ridiculous.</p><p>Unexpectedly, Aaron continued, “It was my first date, too. With this guy I met at a gay bar and he was very pretty and nice and he asked me on a date, it was, like, the best thing that ever happened to me. I was very shy in school you know, so I never dated anyone and then at university I started to be more social but I also realized I was gay, which made dating impossible again, because there weren’t any openly gay guys around. And then when I finally start to feel more comfortable with my sexuality and start going to gay bars and becoming active in the community, I die.” He laughed bitterly, “Just like my mother said, God punished me for my bad actions.”</p><p>Percy snorted. “Is that what they say in the Muggle world?” he asked.</p><p>Aaron looked surprised. “They don’t say that in the wizarding world? So are wizards not homophobic?”</p><p>“I wish,” Percy laughed, “No, I think it’s pretty similar to the muggle world, we don’t have any marriage rights here either and being gay is… frowned upon in many circles. But most wizards aren’t Christians so they argue it differently, with gender norms and family. Family and blood-line are very important to wizards, you know, probably because there aren’t that many of us so we’re a very tight-knit community, where most pureblood families know each other in some way and probably have some shared ancestors. Plenty of incest in our circles,” he said with a grin, something he wouldn’t usually joke about (who was he kidding, he didn’t usually joke about anything), but he wanted to cheer Aaron up.</p><p>Thankfully Aaron chuckled, his eyes lighting up, going back to their usual brightness, “Yeah, I’ve heard about that. The few proud pureblood families who only marry each other.”</p><p>“Exactly,” Percy nodded, “Us Weasleys are one of those too, but the last few generations have been pretty normal. That’s why we’re considered blood traitors, because we haven’t married any cousins in the past 50 years.”</p><p>“Ooh so that’s how you become a blood traitor? I’ve always wondered,” Aaron remarked, trying and failing to hold back a grin.</p><p>They laughed and Percy’s heart felt very warm.</p><p>***</p><p>Over the next month or so they developed a routine of spending their afternoons with George’s friends, and by extension a bunch of other lower years, in the Ravenclaw or Hufflepuff common room (Gryffindor clearly wasn’t an option, and the Slytherin students were… difficult to get close to). Aaron had taken a much stronger liking to the children than Emily ever had, and it felt almost like they were parents, parents of a very large horde of children. Percy had never been more grateful that he’d grown up with four younger siblings, especially the twins had prepared him very well for the task of remaining calm in the face of a dozen annoying (and often very scared) children.</p><p>Mostly they talked to the students, helping them with homework, teaching them about muggles (Percy did most of the former, while Aaron was the expert on the latter), mediating when it came to fights and telling them about Harry Potter and his brave friends (who most of the children had only seen fleetingly in the hallways in the past years) who were going to chase away the Carrows and defeat Voldemort.</p><p>Percy forced himself to use Voldemort’s name whenever he spoke about him, ignoring the scared faces of the students. He felt like it was better to make them get used to it, to dispel the illusion that the Dark Lord was anything more than a man, because how were they going to get through this war if a mere name frightened them? He still made sure the children wouldn’t ever do the same, since it was only ghosts that weren’t affected by the Taboo on the name, as Alexandra had explained to him.</p><p>The DA wasn’t very active since the holidays, so GOD was dispelled, but Percy had taken to joining Alexandra on her nightly hunts – they haunted the corridors invisibly and booed and hurled insults at the Carrows whenever they encountered them – when neither of the Death Eaters were patrolling in the hallways they sometimes even visited them in their chambers, disrupting their sleep. Peeves, Emily, Sir Nicholas and even the Bloody Baron joined in sometimes. Percy had never thought he’d spend the night doing something as… childish as this, but it was an absolutely exhilarating feeling and incredibly satisfying to see the Carrows fuming and yelling back at the air, not knowing where the mockery was coming from. And since the Carrows were too arrogant to ever pay attention to any of the non-human occupants of the castle they never recognized their voices (they would’ve recognized Peeves’, probably, but the poltergeist was an incredible voice actor).</p><p>Percy hated them. He hated all Death Eaters, hated Lucius Malfoy (he would never forget Sixth Year, the horrible hours waiting for the news of Ginny’s death, even if that had only been the beginning, with so much more to come, it was still one of his worst memories), he hated Yaxley (<em>What, are you not even going to beg, Weasley?</em>) and Travers with a burning passion, but nowadays he hated the Carrows more than anyone else (besides Voldemort of course).</p><p>He hated them whenever he saw Neville’s hardened complexion (he’d been a shy boy, Percy remembered, shy and scared and soft-spoken, and while bravery suited him he deserved a better coming-of-age story), whenever he saw bruises on Ginny’s face in the hallways. He hated them when he went to visit Twinkle and Pea in the kitchens and smelt the terror and the sickness in the air, and saw cuts on the faces and arms of the tiny, tiny, kind beings (he understood, finally, what Hermione had been trying to accomplish with S.P.E.W). He hated them when he was helping a Hufflepuff Third Year study and when he asked about her Muggle Studies homework she burst into tears, when a Gryffindor boy threw up before his Dark Arts lessons and refused to leave the bathroom for the next ten minutes, even though he was going to be late and no one ever wanted to be late to a Carrow’s lesson.</p><p>He hated them and he felt so damn helpless, because all he could do was yell at them during their nightly patrols and remember their furious grimaces for when he was so angry at them he felt like he’d explode. Aaron didn’t even have that luxury because Alexandra didn’t allow him to participate – she said she didn’t trust him yet, because he was new here (and no, Percy didn’t count, because he’d gone to school here), not to mention he was from Eastern Europe, which made him even more suspicious in her eyes.</p><p>But in the early mornings Percy and Aaron headed out to the Quidditch pitch and Percy told him all about his night and what new insults Peeves and Emily (the creative minds of the group) had come up with, while Aaron told him about his dreams, where his mind had taken him that night. Sometimes Emily joined them, discussing Hogwarts gossip and British (and nowadays also Hungarian) politics with them - she had a wide network of friends, who knew about all the newest happenings in the wizarding world. But mostly she left them alone to hang out, lying around in comfortable silence or discussing their favourite topic, the merits and idiocies of the wizarding world and all the disadvantages and advantages of the muggle world (Percy was definitely going to see a movie after the war was done).</p><p>Sometimes they talked about more serious things as well, about their families (Aaron had a complicated relationship with his parents as well, thought that was largely due to their rather conservative world views), their former lives and their dreams, their plans for the future which would never happen now. Sometimes they went flying around Hogwarts as well, revelling in the silence and beauty of the lake and the forest in the early morning light, especially when it was snowing, and the snow dampened all sounds except for their occasional whispers as they swooped down between the trees of the Forbidden Forest, or skimmed the surface of the lake, causing slight ripples in the water. On the rare days when the sky wasn’t entirely obscured by clouds they watched the sun go up together, sometimes from the ground, sometimes from high up in the sky. It was definitely his favourite part of the day.</p><p> </p><p>It was an evening around the end of January when he was waiting in front Alecto’s office for her to start patrolling and Ginny came it out. Thankfully he was already invisible, because he froze as soon as she appeared. Seeing her from this close up shocked him – she looked terrible, worn out and almost hopeless, something she never seemed like when he saw her in the hallways with her friends – probably because she wouldn’t let herself seem vulnerable when she thought people could see. His heart clenched (or at least that’s what it felt like – he wasn’t sure how that worked, exactly), sorrow filling him at the thought of his little sister being so strong for everyone else – she was truly incredible and he was so, so proud, but he couldn’t help but wish that she was a bit less brave, a bit less stubborn.</p><p>Because who knows what Alecto had done to her in there, had she Crucio-d his sister? Had she hurt her? He felt his blood boil at the thought, and he wasn’t sure he could bear watching Ginny leave like this, looking hurt and defeated, and alone. All of his instincts screamed against it, he was a big brother after all, he was supposed to protect, or at least support, his younger siblings.</p><p>He followed her as she walked down the hallway, up the stairs, all the way until she was in front of the entrance of the Gryffindor tower. “Ginny,” he said then, softly, becoming visible.</p><p>She spun around, wand raised, and all the exhaustion and pain was gone from her hardened face. They stood frozen for a moment, staring at each other.</p><p>“Percy,” she whispered then, and he couldn’t tell if she sounded surprised or sad or happy or angry (maybe she still hated him, maybe she didn’t want to speak to him).</p><p>“Hey. I-I just wanted to check if you were alright,” he explained, feeling very uncomfortable and regretting ever revealing himself. She was staring at him like she’d never seen him before.</p><p>“If I’m alright?” she asked, seemingly breaking out of her stupor, “I just lost a brother, how could I possibly be alright?”</p><p>Fear filled him at the words. “A brother? Who?” he asked, panicking as he recalled all of his brothers’ faces, who he all loved more than anything.</p><p>Ginny looked incredulous. “What do you mean <em>who</em>? I’m talking about you, you prat!” she snapped, and that made sense, except that it didn’t to Percy, because he found it hard to accept that Ginny, fierce and loyal Ginny who had always adored all of her brothers more than boring Percy, who had never been particularly forgiving, would… still love him as one of her brothers.</p><p>He noticed with a start that there were tears in her eyes and she was staring at him almost expectantly, but she had to know that he couldn’t fix this. “Well, I’m sorry for your loss,” he offered.</p><p>That actually startled a laugh out of her. He was proud – he’d gotten better at making people laugh since he’d befriended Emily, and George, and Aaron. Before, Penny had been the only one who’d laughed not just at him, but at his jokes as well (he hoped she still would, when they won the war and she got out of Azkaban).</p><p>“You- was that a <em>joke</em>?” Ginny asked, wiping the tears from her eyes with the sleeves of her cloak. This time Percy could hear the warmth in her voice, and he was relieved.</p><p>“Maybe,” he smiled.</p><p>“Shocking,” she remarked, “So, you’ve changed, huh?”</p><p>That observation shocked him out of his moment of pride, because, yes, he’d been a prat for a very long time and he knew he needed to make up for it, as uncomfortable as it may be – it was why he’d become a ghost in the first place.</p><p>“Yes, about that – I’m sorry,” he forced himself to look her in the eyes, “For being an arse. For making Mum cry. For not believing Harry. For not coming to visit Dad and Bill in the hospital, for choosing the Ministry over the family.” He’d spent so much time thinking about all the things he’d done wrong, so much time overthinking what he would say when he saw his family again, that it felt almost easy saying it, listing off all the things he had to apologize for, a list he knew by heart. The hard part wasn’t apologizing, he knew he’d been a terrible person and he hated himself for it, it was waiting for her reaction, hoping for forgiveness, or at least something in like that.</p><p>Ginny stared back at him while he spoke (her eyebrows raising slightly when he said “arse”, like she’d never heard him swear before, and she probably hadn’t) and stayed silent for a few moments when he was done. “I really wish I could hug you right now,” she said, finally, and that was… good.</p><p>“Me too,” Percy sighed, his relief mixed bitterly with the ache of never being able to hold his little sister again.</p><p>They looked at each other silently for a moment, as if sharing their sorrow, then Ginny spoke again, “For the record, I’m sorry as well. That you felt like you couldn’t come back to us when you realized you were wrong, or later, when- when you were risking your life helping muggle-borns. We would’ve forgiven you, you know, if you had come back and apologized, then as well as now.”</p><p>“Well, it’s hardly your fault I didn’t though. I was too proud, and too ashamed and too much of an idiot.”</p><p>“Yeah, but it’s not just that, is it? I’ve thought about it a lot since we got the news of your death and I think maybe we didn’t always show you that we <em>all</em> love you, not just Mum, even before you left, and especially after. I think we had a hard time remembering it ourselves, before we found out that you’d died. That was… the worst thing that’s ever happened to our family, truly, and I don’t think you understand that. When I said I’d just lost a brother you thought I was talking about someone else, for Merlin’s sake!”</p><p>“I just panicked,” Percy defended himself, not sure what else to say, because she was right, of course, he really didn’t think he was that important to them, not as important as everyone else in the family at least.</p><p>“If someone else had died I would’ve said <em>two </em>brothers, Perce. That should’ve been obvious. So we <em>did</em> do something wrong, clearly, and I want to apologize for that,” Ginny declared, her tone leaving no room for arguments.</p><p>Percy sighed. “Fine then, apology accepted.”</p><p>She rolled her eyes, but she looked glad. Percy… didn’t know how he felt. It still felt wrong, hearing her say that his death was “the worst thing that had ever happened to the family”, but he felt grateful that she at least let him feel like he was the only one at fault for everything that had happened.</p><p>“So, what happened during your detention with Carrow? You didn’t look very good when you came out. Did she do anything to you?”” he asked, going back to what he had originally wanted to talk to her about.</p><p>She shook her head, but she didn’t look as annoyed as he’d expected her to be (none of his younger siblings had ever enjoyed him fussing over them – they preferred Bill’s casual way of checking on them, something Percy had never succeeded in imitating, instead coming off as stuck-up and cold when he tried). “I’m fine, Perce. She was trying to get me to Crucio a cat, like that would ever happen. She didn’t do much else, used a few stinging hexes to “test my reaction time” but mostly she’s all talk,” she shrugged.</p><p>“That’s good,” Percy nodded, then added, trying to be honest, “I was afraid she’d Crucio-d you.”</p><p>“Oh no, they make other students do that to you, turn it into a learning exercise, but they rarely get their hands dirty with Unforgivables themselves.” She stared at him. “Did they? When they killed you?”</p><p>Percy looked away. “Yes. But not for very long.” He tried to smile reassuringly (it had felt very long). He decided this was the right time to end the conversation.</p><p>“Anyway, you should go to bed, you look tired and your body needs sleep,” he declared in his older-brother-and-strict-Prefect voice.</p><p>It didn’t seem to have a very strong effect, other than bringing a smile to Ginny’s face (which was better than anything else, really). “Now <em>that’s</em> the Percy I know. We’ll talk more tomorrow, okay?”</p><p>Percy smiled back. “I’ll come by the Gryffindor common room in the afternoon. Good night, Ginny.”</p><p>“Night, Perce.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>I found writing Ginny very hard, I feel like I can't really do her character justice, but I tried my best :)</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. Chapter 7</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Once Ginny was gone Percy headed back down, looking for his fellow Carrow-hunters – which wasn’t all that easy, considering they were probably all invisible. As he passed the Dark Arts classroom, Emily popped up in front of him. “Percy! Where’ve you been? Snogging Aaron? It’s about time!” She waggled her eyebrows at him in a truly horrible manner.</p><p>“No, of course not!” Percy hissed at her, glad that ghosts at the very least couldn’t blush. Ser Nicholas, Alexandra and Peeves faded into visibility around him as well, Peeves wearing a gleeful grin on his face.</p><p>“Are you sure about that?” he asked, with the same, absolutely unbearable eyebrow-waggling.</p><p>“I was talking to my sister,” Percy huffed, realizing his mistake instantly, when all four ghosts exchanged surprised glances – it was bloody embarrassing that everyone knew how meaningful that statement was (he felt quite betrayed by Alexandra, who usually couldn’t care less about anyone’s issues, but even she raised her eyebrows slightly at his admission).</p><p>“Reeeally?” Emily asked, looking almost impressed, “Finally living up to the Gryffindor name, huh?”</p><p>Percy waved her off, mildly irritated even though he knew not to take her all too seriously. “Shut up. I’m going back to the Parlour, you guys have fun.”</p><p>The last thing he saw before spinning around was Peeves and Emily’s smug grins.</p><p> </p><p>He was relieved when he found Aaron lying on the sofa in the Parlour – he was the only person he wanted to talk to right now. “Hey, Aaron.”</p><p>Aaron’s eyes blinked open and he smiled his lazy early morning smile at Percy. “Hey.”</p><p>“Sorry, I didn’t want to wake you, but I wanted to talk.”</p><p>Aaron sat up. “Yeah, of course, what’s up?”</p><p>“I talked to Ginny just now,” Percy explained, sitting down next to Aaron. He glanced to the side for a moment, checking for a reaction. Aaron was looking at him in rapt attention, but he could read no other emotion off his face – unsurprising, really, it was Aaron’s habit to always listen to people’s explanations before passing any judgement on something.</p><p>“It was… relieving, that much is certain. She was happy to see me, I think, and I apologized for everything and she was very kind about it.” He paused, deep in thought.</p><p>“I just… I don’t understand anything anymore. She said- well, she actually apologized herself, because she thinks that they – my family, aside from my Mum of course – didn’t show that they love me enough or something along those lines. And the way she talked about me dying implied that they’re all absolutely devastated about it? Like it’s the worst thing to ever happen to the family, like they don’t despise me anymore. And I just… have a hard time believing that.”</p><p>He looked at Aaron, hoping that he understood what he was trying to say, as much as he didn’t understand it himself.</p><p>“So… you just can’t accept that your family loves you, basically,” Aaron summarized for him.</p><p>Percy frowned. “In a way, yes. It just doesn’t make sense to me, I don’t <em>feel </em>like they love me.” He was honestly confusing himself – he just couldn’t put his finger on what exactly was bothering him about all of this.</p><p>They were silent for a few seconds.</p><p>“Maybe that’s your-“ Aaron paused, gesturing wildly “-your ghost thing?”</p><p>“My ghost thing?”</p><p>“Yeah, like what being nearly headless is for Sir Nicholas, what hating her family is for Alexandra, like… Emily’s obsession with her sister, I guess. I mean, why did you decide to become a ghost?”</p><p>“Uh, to make up with my family, mostly. To apologize and try to… make them not hate me anymore,” Percy shrugged, not sure where Aaron was going with this.</p><p>“Well, that makes sense. So you’ve kind of based your entire existence as a ghost on the belief that your family hates you, right?”</p><p> “In a way, yes?”</p><p>“So you know what wizards say about ghosts, that they can’t move on from their problems in life or the way they died, stuff like that. And that <em>is </em>a thing, it seems like everyone has that – their ghost thing, the thing that they are obsessed with, sometimes for centuries, or maybe forever. So maybe it’s like that for you, with thinking that family doesn’t care about you. That it’s ingrained in your mind, and it’s hard to let go of it. But, fortunately, you have your family around to tell that you that you’re wrong, until you actually believe it.”</p><p>After that last sentence Aaron gave him a warm smile, with his bright eyes lighting up the room, as they always did, and somewhere in his non-existent chest Percy’s dead heart squeezed painfully.</p><p>It made sense, as much as it was a peculiar theory Aaron had made it make sense, and he’d made it sound so… hopeful. At the same time there were too many emotions in Percy’s head to comprehend what that meant, he didn’t even know where to start untangling them – with his family, what he felt about them, what he thought they felt about him, what Ginny had said, or with that feeling in his chest when he looked at Aaron’s bright eyes. It was too much, too sudden, to deal with it right now.</p><p>“So, what’s <em>your</em> ghost thing then?” he asked Aaron instead.</p><p>“Well… I guess it’s that I always feel like I’m wasting my time. Which makes no sense, because I have all of eternity now.” He laughed dryly. “But that’s what it felt like when I died, like I’d wasted my entire life being scared, not doing the things I really wanted to do, not enjoying life like I should’ve. That’s why I became a ghost, I just thought that I <em>needed </em>my life to be more than that, because there was so much I still wanted to do. And now everything I do feels wasted, like I should be doing something else, but I don’t even know <em>what</em>.”</p><p>Percy felt more than heard how close Aaron’s voice was to breaking on that last word. It was strange, how these feelings could go by unnoticed even with how much time they spent with each other, even though clearly this was something that haunted Aaron every step of the day, he’d just never said anything. Percy understood that very well, he didn’t like talking about his troubles either unless they came up, and even then it was only a few people who were truly privy to his thoughts. It still hurt, somehow, even if it was irrational – with all the talks they’d had in the silence of dawn on the Quidditch pitch, Aaron had never said anything about feeling that way, even with how much of himself Percy had shared.</p><p>Then he realized something else – did Aaron feel like he was wasting time during those talks as well? The thought stung, even it wasn’t technically Aaron’s fault, but he was the only person, besides maybe Emily (and Penelope, back when he’d gone to Hogwarts), with who he didn’t feel like he was annoying them or wasting their time when he told them things about himself.</p><p>Aaron’s voice stopped this train of thought. “When we’re down at the Quidditch pitch, or anywhere else really, hanging out, just the two of us, that’s the only time I don’t feel it at all, the seconds and minutes slipping away.”</p><p>Aaron’s bright (brown) eyes were serious as they met Percy’s and relief replaced the heavy feeling he’d had in his stomach just now. And the painful squeezing in his chest was back, but he didn’t want to think about what that meant right now. He <em>couldn’t </em>think about it right now, couldn’t think about anything really, because all he could think about was Aaron’s eyes as they stared into his.</p><p>There was no hammering of his heart, no blush rising to his cheeks, but he still felt like there was, like his mind could still remember what it was supposed to feel like, even without a body to do it for him.</p><p>It was Aaron who looked away first.</p><p>“You should get some sleep, that was an eventful day,” he said, getting up – he always insisted on calling it sleep, even though it wasn’t sleep and Percy disliked misnaming things.</p><p>He couldn’t help but feel like this was a rejection of some sort, this sudden ending of their conversation, and there was a heavy weight in his stomach suddenly, but Aaron was right, he needed the time to work through the events of the past few hours. Not to mention he hadn’t really had any proper downtime in the past two weeks, busy spending his nights haunting Carrows and his days with Aaron and the kids – he was falling back into old habits, working day and night and never resting, but he was dead now and didn’t need rest, he told himself.</p><p>“Good night, Percy,” Aaron said from the other sofa.</p><p>“Good night.”</p><p>***</p><p>By the time Ginny arrived in the Gryffindor common room Percy had already been waiting there for half an hour, sitting in one of the arm chairs in front of the fire place, silently trying to manifest the end of Ginny’s lessons as soon as possible, trying not to think about last night and this morning – instead of their usual morning routine Aaron had disappeared into the kitchens as soon as Percy got up, excusing himself from their usual talks because the spirits were very low among the house elves and he wanted to cheer them up – this was true of course, and it made sense, since Aaron got along very well with all the house elves and often spent his evenings with them, singing Hungarian folk songs to entertain them while they worked (he looked good when he sang, cheeks glowing and eyebrows almost dancing to the rhythm, and Percy loved hearing him speak his mother tongue, the way the strange syllables rolled off his tongue).</p><p>So Percy understood, and was glad that Aaron was trying to help the house elves, but it still felt like the other ghost was avoiding him and so he spent his morning chatting with Emily, deeply invested in all the newest gossip about Blaise Zabini and Pansy Parkinson’s secret affair and illicit sex life, desperate to force all thoughts of Aaron from his mind. He didn’t want to think of the way his mind reacted to the other ghost’s presence, the way he felt like his heartrate was quickening when their eyes met and the way he had felt last night, when Aaron had smiled his warm smile at him.</p><p>Which was why he felt immense relief at the sight of Ginny and her honest smile when she spotted him – at least someone was happy to see him.</p><p>“Hey, Perce.” She plopped down on the arm chair next to his. “You need to talk to Mum and Dad,” she said. Percy was incredulous, he couldn’t imagine how she could jump straight into the hard topics like that, instead of avoiding them until he couldn’t anymore, as he was wont to do.</p><p>Ginny continued, “I wanted to write them a letter yesterday evening, but it seems wrong for them to find out something like that through a letter, so I think you should visit them in the Burrow.”</p><p>“I don’t know, Ginny, I’m busy-“ he started.</p><p>She interrupted him before he got any further with explaining George and Leon and the rest of them, “You’re <em>busy</em>? Busy like you were that summer when you wouldn’t even eat dinner with us most days? Busy like when you didn’t come visit Dad or Bill in the hospital, when you didn’t come to Bill’s wedding?”</p><p>It felt like she had punched him, and from the way she was glaring at him that was the intended effect.</p><p>“I-“ he started, not even sure what he wanted to say, but he didn’t think he could continue, his throat closing up, as much as he fought it. He’d been on edge for the past few hours and he felt very close to falling off the edge now.</p><p>Ginny sighed, and the anger seemed to seep out of her posture. “I’m just saying, I won’t let you use being busy as an excuse not to fix what’s happened between you and the family. You need to talk to them at some point, you cannot possibly have that much to do, you’re <em>dead </em>for Merlin’s sake.”</p><p>“Yes, you’re right,” Percy admitted, staring at his lap, imagining his father’s cold face as he remembered it being whenever they encountered each other at the Ministry.</p><p>“How come it even took you this long to reach out? It’s a pure coincidence that we even found out you were dead, the Ministry didn’t say a word about it.”</p><p>Percy looked up again, snorting. “It’s not a coincidence in the least, I <em>asked </em>Professor McGonagall to tell you I was dead, because obviously I knew the Ministry would hush it up. I spent all of my waking hours in the Ministry, I know <em>exactly </em>how things work there.” He didn’t want to be snappish but he hated it when people insulted his intelligence, and he would’ve been bloody stupid to think that the Ministry – meaning the Death Eaters – would breath a word of his death to anyone.</p><p>“You <em>asked </em>McGonagall? So she knew you were a ghost?”</p><p>“Yes, but I asked her not to say anything about that. I-“</p><p>“What, why? Do you know how horrible that was? It completely ruined everyone’s Christmas and if we’d known-“</p><p>This time Percy interrupted her, brows furrowed. “But she said she’d send the letter after Christmas so it wouldn’t ruin your Christmas.”</p><p>“Okay fine, so it ruined the rest of our Christmas holidays, that’s so much better!”</p><p>“Well, for one, I didn’t realize it would be that bad.” Ginny looked like she was about to interrupt him again, so he quickly continued, “And also, I think that was necessary. I <em>am </em>dead, and I thought it would be better if you had time to accept that before you found out that I was still around, you know?”</p><p>He hoped she would understand, because he didn’t want this to be another thing that came between them. She stared at him for a few moments, considering.</p><p>“Hm, I guess that makes sense,” she huffed, “though I’m not sure it was worth it, but at least this way you being a ghost is a good thing and not super depressing because you’re going spend the rest of eternity aimlessly wandering around on earth.”</p><p>Percy laughed at that, “Well, that’s one way to look at it.”</p><p>Her piercing gaze scanned him for a moment, looking him up and down, then she shook her head.</p><p>“Whatever, let’s get back to the important things, like you visiting Mum and Dad, preferably right now.”</p><p>“Right now? The wards won’t even let me in!”</p><p>“Of course they will, you’re family.”</p><p>“Yes, but I’m dead, the wards won’t recognize my magical signature because I don’t <em>have </em>one,” Percy explained, “that’s why the Taboo doesn’t work on ghosts either.”</p><p>Ginny’s eyes glinted. “It doesn’t? So you could theoretically say his name?”</p><p>“What do you mean theoretically? Voldemort, Voldemort, Voldemort.”</p><p>That definitely drew some attention to them, a group of lower years staring at him incredulously, but instead of feeling embarrassed Percy was just amused, especially by Ginny’s wide eyes.</p><p>“Never thought you’d be capable of doing something <em>cool</em>,” she remarked, incredulous but never losing her sharp tongue.</p><p>“You have low standards of what it means to be cool. I’d claim having twelve N.E.W.T.s is cool, repeating someone’s name three times not so much.”</p><p>She rolled her eyes. “Whatever. But stop trying to avoid the topic!”</p><p>“You started it!” Percy huffed, feeling slightly ridiculous at bickering with his 16-year-old sister, but enjoying it, the comforting feeling of family as it used to be.</p><p>She waved her hand dismissively. “Well, I have a solution for the ward problem. I’ll just send an owl with you with a letter telling them to let you in.” She smirked at him victoriously.</p><p>It was a good idea. Which meant that Percy was going to see his parents again in a few hours. Meaning he would probably spend the next few hours with a clenched stomach and the endless hiss of insecurities in his ear. Marvellous!</p><p>But Ginny was right, he needed to do this, needed to start facing things so they could move on, together, preferably. “Smart plan,” he nodded at his little sister.</p><p>“I know. As long as you can keep up with an owl.”</p><p>“Of course I can, I’m a ghost, I can keep up with practically anything.”</p><p>She shook her head. “That is so <em>weird</em>. You used to be about as athletic as a flobberworm.”</p><p>Percy sniffed, “I beg to differ. I used to do yoga with Penny every morning, I’ll have you know.”</p><p>“Oh, I’m sure you did,” Ginny smirked, winking. Percy groaned. He definitely didn’t need to hear his little sister joking about sex, thank you very much.</p><p>“As much as I love hearing about your exciting sex life, I’m going to my dorm to write that letter now. You’re not getting out of this, dearest brother mine.”</p><p>She reached out as if to pat his shoulders, then quickly pulled back. “Sorry,” she half-smiled at him, and quickly turned away, heading to her dorm room. Percy was too preoccupied with the soon-to-be meeting with his parents to dwell too long on that moment, thankfully.</p><p>He wondered what they would think of him now, his parents. If they’d think he’d changed. Ginny definitely thought so, and acted like it too, and while he couldn’t see the change in himself as well as she could, not having talked to him in years, he knew he was a very different person than he’d been when he’d left them, at least on the inside.</p><p>He wasn’t sure when that change had happened, wasn’t sure what kind of person he’d been all those years at the Ministry, where he’d lost most of his identity to Fudge, and then to Scrimgeour – Voldemort would’ve been too far, even for him. But all those years he hadn’t had any friends or family to talk to, hadn’t existed outside of work, outside of his own mind, which was a vicious battleground most of the time. So it was hard to tell when the change had happened, the change that resulted in Ginny calling him cool and laughing at his minimal sense of humour.</p><p>He’d started taking himself less seriously at some point, after the realization came, gradually, that he was working in a bloody theatre, that the Ministry was a fucking joke, that his dreams and his pride were those of a clown. And he’d developed a sense for sarcasm as well in those times, when he’d had nothing else, been nothing else, except for the harsh jabs he had thought at Umbridge and Yaxley and all the idiots in the Ministry in the privacy of his own mind. He felt like his friendship with Emily, and then George and Aaron, had given him the chance to express these things out loud, to figure out who he was now, after years of being lost and lonely.</p><p>But dying had changed him as well, that was clear. It had changed all the rules, thrown them out the window to be exact, because ghosts didn’t have rules, didn’t know any authority (besides that of Alexandra of course, and there was a reason why Percy appreciated her as much as he did). It was only now that he thought about it that he realized how much he had depended on rules and customs back when he’d been alive – and how much less he did now. He would of course still never dare call Professor McGonagall simply McGonagall the way Ginny (and everyone else besides Sir Nicholas and Alexandra) did so carelessly – that was a matter of principle – and he still thought homework was very important, because that was simply a fact. But he called You-Know-Who Voldemort, he made animal noises at the Carrows at night and he laughed at his friends’ mockery of some of the more ridiculous wizarding customs (that was definitely Aaron rubbing off on him).</p><p>“It’s done,” Ginny interrupted his thoughts, returning from her dorm room, envelope in hand.</p><p>“That was fast.”</p><p>“Well, there wasn’t much to write,” she shrugged, “Hi Mum, Percy is a ghost and he’s standing in front of the door, please let him in.”</p><p>“Tactful,” Percy remarked.</p><p>“Aren’t I always?” she grinned.</p><p>He shook his head, laughing. “Fine, just give me a moment to let someone know I’m leaving and then I’ll be ready.”</p><p>“Meet you at the owlery!”</p><p> </p><p>Percy found Emily in the Parlour, playing mental chess with the Grey Lady (it was the only social activity Percy had ever seen the silent Ravenclaw ghost partake in, and she was insanely good at it as well, her level of focus honestly intimidating). Emily stood up and came over as soon as she saw him – she probably knew that this past day had been quite dramatic and confusing for him and seemed ready to break off her game if he asked her to, judging by her worried frown (understandable, considering she was definitely going to lose anyway, as always).</p><p>“I just wanted to let you know that I’m leaving for a few hours, to go visit my parents,” he explained.</p><p>“Your parents? Really?” She was serious this time, unlike last night. She seemed to know that this was not the right time for jokes (she probably wouldn’t have mocked him yesterday either, had she not been very clearly inebriated). “Good luck, mate.”</p><p>She put one of her hands on his shoulder for a moment, a rare gesture of affection – for the most part ghosts tended to avoid physical contact with each other. “You too. Who knows, you might be able to beat her within the next millenium,” he said with a grin.</p><p>“Fuck you, Weasley,” she laughed, giving him the finger as she joined the Grey Lady on the sofa again. He left the Parlour with a grin on his face, which lasted approximately 15 seconds until he remembered where he was heading, and by the time he arrived at the owlery his stomach had tied itself into knots.</p><p>Ginny was already there, talking to an owl – Ron’s owl, Pigwidgeon, Percy remembered. She smiled at him. “Come on, he’s ready. Go and comfort Mum and Dad, Perce. They love you and miss you very much,” she said, sounding sombre.</p><p>Percy managed some sort of a smile. “I’ll try my best.”</p><p>“Feel like you’ve been hugged!” she called after him as he followed Pigwidgeon (he simply refused to call an owl Pig) out into the drizzling rain.</p><p> </p><p>The sky was grey, the landscape wet and unhappy, there were raindrops falling through his body like he didn’t even exist, and Percy was going to see his parents soon.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>This one was more of a filler, but next chapter things are happening...</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0008"><h2>8. Chapter 8</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>During their miserable journey through the rain Percy regaled Pigwidgeon with tragic tales of the Ghost Rebellion of 1524, as recounted by a drunk Ser Nicholas and Fat Friar. His passionate speeches about Henry the Horntail-Slayer, the heroic (or maybe just alcoholic) ghost who had been banned from England for inciting violence among substance-abusing spirits, were fuelled by altruism, trying to cheer up his soggy travel companion, and definitely not an attempt to distract himself from the destination they would soon arrive at.</p><p>Finally the shadow of the Burrow appeared before them, shrouded by a thick curtain of rain, just as he was about to switch to the Goblin Rebellions – a topic he had learned extensively about from Alexandra, who was surprisingly quite passionate about the various diplomatic misconducts of the Ministry during those times and the severe mistreatment of goblins beforehand.</p><p>Instead Percy fell silent, stopping in front of the familiar building before he could run into any wards – he felt like if that happened, if he ran into a wall as he was approaching his childhood home, the walls and windows he knew so well, he wouldn’t be able to hold back the tears anymore. The very sight of the building brought a flood of memories with it, of things he would never do again, of a person he could never ever be again. But he swallowed down the urge to cry, watching as the kitchen window opened for the dripping bundle of feathers, all that was left of Pigwidgeon after their flight.</p><p>It felt like an eternity of imagining his Mum’s and Dad’s faces, all the expressions he could remember having seen them wear, wondering what he would be greeted with, when the front door flew open to reveal his Mum standing there, just as he remembered her, short but broad and fiery red. He suddenly wasn’t sure if he would even be able to get a single word out as he stared at his mother, meeting her almost panicked gaze that finally found him after a moment of searching (he probably wasn’t easy to spot, opaque and obscured by the rain, even if he was standing only a few yards away).</p><p>All he could hear was the rushing of the wind in his ear, the near-continuous splatter of raindrops around him, as they stood in silence for a moment. Then something in her face seemed to harden and she finally spoke, “What did you first want to name your owl?”</p><p>The flash of fear he’d felt at her expression evaporated – she was just testing his identity, to see if this wasn’t all a trap, which was the correct and smart thing to do, of course. “Apollo,” he replied. He’d decided on Hermes in the end because it was more fitting for an owl and still a Greek god, as he’d been obsessed with Greek mythology at the time.</p><p>The sternness melted away from her face and with a wave of her wand the wards shimmered in front of him. “Oh, Percy,” she said softly as he floated towards her, his gaze still trained on her, afraid that if he broke eye contact now he wouldn’t be able to look her into the eyes again.</p><p>“I’m sorry, Mum,” he whispered over the rushing of the rain when he felt like he was close enough, like it was only a few steps to go for a hug, except that there would be no hugs today, not anymore, not for him. She looked up at him, tears in her eyes, and he knew that he had made her cry more than maybe anyone else ever had in her life, and he wasn’t sure how he could ever forgive himself for that. But he had to start somewhere.</p><p>“I’m sorry for all the things I said to you,” – he’d never said anything against her, not directly at least, but he knew that anything he’d said to hurt Dad hurt her just as much – “and I’m so sorry for not being here, for leaving.” He wasn’t sure if he was talking about the fight anymore, or about something else. Because the way she looked at him, the way Ginny had, like she was seeing him for the first time, or just seeing him for the first time since she’d thought she’d never see him again, he knew that him leaving the first time hadn’t hurt nearly as much as the second.</p><p>He thought that having children couldn’t possibly be worth it when one of them stood in front of you, transparent and barely there, <em>dead</em>.</p><p>“You’re here now, Percy,” she said, voice steady and loving, the way only hers could ever be, and smiling at him even as tears were running down her cheeks. And then she started sobbing and Percy would’ve given anything to hug her right now, to feel her warmth again, to feel like he was back home, and so he wouldn’t have to helplessly stand there and watch her break apart. Something snapped inside his chest then and he was crying as well, choked and breathless sobs escaping his tight throat. That only made his mother cry harder and he saw her gripping her apron tightly, like she had to restrain herself from reaching out to him. <em>Too late</em>, he thought, <em>too fucking late</em>, and the tears kept coming.</p><p>He wasn’t sure how long they stood there, raindrops still falling through him rhythmically, sobs racking through his body, until his breathing started to slow down and his Mum wiped her eyes violently, as if forcefully stopping the relentless stream of tears. After she blew her nose into a handkerchief and Percy took a few deep, shuddering breaths, they seemed to have both calmed down somewhat. She smiled at him, though it almost seemed to break for the first half second as she glanced at (or rather through) his grey silhouette again, but she recovered quickly.</p><p>“Come on in, Percy,” she said, stepping back from there doorway, where she had been standing just behind the line of where the rain was pouring for the past minutes, “If you stay outside in the cold too long you’ll-“ she broke off the sentence, looking almost uncertain, and Percy decided not to comment. He was sure she’d find a way to fuss over a dead person as well, and he smiled slightly at the thought.</p><p>Her face brightened at the sight and she smiled back, this time more successfully. “I love you, Mum,” he said, honestly, the words coming out as soon as the thought crossed his mind. For a moment he almost regretted it, as she looked like she was about to burst into tears again, but she didn’t.</p><p>“I love you too, dear, so, so much.” His chest felt warm at the words (from his mother he actually believed them) and at the sight of the Burrow, which still felt like home, even after all this time. He followed her into the kitchen and looked around, remembering suddenly that it wasn’t just his Mum he had came to see.</p><p>“Where’s Dad?” he asked, fingers clenching at his side at the thought of having to speak to his father – which was always going to be more difficult than his talk with his mother, though hopefully less tearful. He glanced at the clock for a moment, but all the hands were pointing at “Mortal Peril”, and he quickly looked away, not wanting to entertain that thought.</p><p>“He’s still at work, but he should be home soon,” she looked wary suddenly, “You’re staying for a while, right?”</p><p>He wished she wasn’t afraid he would run away again. “Of course,” he smiled.</p><p>“Good,” she pulled out a chair at the table for him and sat down across from it, “Now tell me what has been going on with you.”</p><p>She looked at him expectantly and he sat down, trying to make it look as un-ghostly as possible as he moved without the support of any of his limbs – he was fairly certain that made her uncomfortable. Still, she seemed happy just to look at him, had barely let him out of her sight since he’d come in (it was a rare thing for him, having her full attention for such a long time, but the Burrow was a lot emptier than it used to be). He remembered the hardened expression on her face in the beginning, the way she had looked pale and tired, almost ghostly herself, but she seemed different now, more glowing and warm, the way he always thought of her.</p><p>“Well,” he wasn’t sure if she was asking about the Ministry or his ghost life, but he decided it would be safer to talk about the latter, “I’ve been at Hogwarts since I died.” He watched her face carefully for her reaction, but she’d clearly pulled herself together and Percy was almost ashamed – his mother had fought in two wars and raised seven children, she wasn’t fragile and she wasn’t going to break just because he mentioned his death.</p><p>“I-“ suddenly he wasn’t sure if he should continue, if she would be angry at him, but there was no point in being anything but honest, so he pressed on, speaking quickly, “I asked Professor McGonagall to tell you about my death, but not that I was a ghost, because I thought it would be better if you could deal with it properly, and not have to live with this… half-thing.” He waved his arms at himself, hoping she would understand what he meant when she looked at what was left of him. “I’m sorry if I hurt you, if it was a mistake.”</p><p>He was getting better at apologies, it seemed.</p><p>She didn’t seem angry though, she seemed calm and almost at peace, and for the first time since he’d spoken to Ginny he let himself entertain the thought that maybe he hadn’t been wrong in hiding from his family.</p><p>“No, I understand, dear,” she nodded firmly, “It would’ve been horrible either way. And at least this way, instead of being disappointed or conflicted, I can be happy that you are here, in whatever shape or form. Don’t you dare think for a moment that being able to see my dead son again wasn’t one of the happiest moments of my life.”</p><p>“Happy? Mum, you cried for 15 minutes,” Percy pointed out.</p><p> “Those were tears of happiness as much as they were of grief,” she replied simply.</p><p>The warm smile was back, the one he had always looked forward to on the train back from Hogwarts, the one he’d carried around on a photograph in his bag during his first year at the Ministry, before everything went to hell. “So, what have you been doing at Hogwarts?” she asked.</p><p>He honestly didn’t understand his mother sometimes, how she could cry for the first ten minutes of their reunion and then seem so bright and calm and accepting about everything afterwards, while still fussing and questioning him about his life the way she always had done, even when she’d been swamped with house work and hyperactive children. She was truly a force of nature.</p><p>“I’ve been taking care of the children, talking to them and helping out with their homework, things like that. It’s almost like being a Prefect again,” he said with a smile – he wanted her to know that he was fine, that being a ghost was an acceptable form of existence, really, because no matter how well she hid it, he could feel the worry beneath her interest.</p><p>The answer seemed to satisfy her. “You were always a great Prefect, responsible and motivated,” she nodded. Percy bit back the cynical remark that she was probably the only person who thought so, especially within the family.</p><p>Nevertheless, sitting here at the kitchen table, having his Mum's full attention, made him want to talk to her about everything in his life. He wanted to tell her about his friends most of all, about Emily, George, Leon, Aaron, Alexandra and even Peeves, because hearing about them would surely make her happy, the way they made <em>him</em> happy, and proud, maybe, that he was finally part of a friend group – of course he’d had the Prefects back at school, and he’d gotten along quite well with most of them, but this was different, because now he felt like he was an integral and important part of the group, like they wouldn’t work as well together if he wasn’t there.</p><p>But before he could get a word out, the crack of Apparition sounded from the front door and he froze. “That must be Arthur,” Molly smiled at him encouragingly.</p><p>Percy nodded mutely and stared at the kitchen entrance, where his Dad appeared a few moments later, an exhausted smile on his face. Instantly it struck Percy that he looked old and weary and so unlike himself, unlike the almost childishly excitable father he’d grown up with, and often resented for his inability to take himself seriously or to understand Percy’s stern and disciplined outlook on life.</p><p>Even during their short and awkward encounters in the Ministry it had been burningly obvious to Percy that his father’s passion for his job was rotting away under Voldemort’s rule. But this was different, worse, because there were lines in his face, grey hairs on his head that Percy didn’t recognize, that hadn’t even been there a month ago. He wondered if he was the cause, if grief had turned his father into this older and hardened version of himself – except that Arthur disliked him, he was certain of that, had felt it when he kept looking through him at the Ministry, when they’d had that fateful fight, that he would never be good enough for his father’s love, the same way Arthur hadn’t thought he was good enough for that promotion.</p><p>While Percy spent a few seconds analysing his father’s appearance, it seemingly also took Arthur a few moments to take in the sight before him.</p><p>“Arthur! Look who’s here!” Molly said with a bright smile, breaking the shocked silence, like Percy being here was the greatest thing to ever happen – and while Percy doubted his Dad felt the same way, he hoped he did, he hoped Ginny was right.</p><p>“Hi, Dad,” he said, smiling uncertainly. Arthur just kept staring at him, like he wasn’t sure how to react, and that did nothing to soften the panic that made it hard for Percy to think, the fear of coldness and rejection from the person who’s approval possibly mattered the most clouding his mind. So he said the only thing he could think of that could make things better – it felt like jumping off a cliff.</p><p>“I-I wanted to apologize for all the things I said to you” – he wondered what it would take to stop his Dad from looking at him like <em>that</em> – “for being a blind idiot and for not coming to visit you in the hospital” – he noticed that his voice was slightly high-pitched and shaking and that was embarrassing, he was a grown man for Merlin’s sake, but he felt like a child under his father’s unreadable gaze – “I was wrong about… everything, and I hurt all of you and I’m sorry, Dad.”</p><p>He wondered, if he stared hard enough, wished hard enough, would his Dad smile at him again?</p><p>And he did, suddenly, his face softening within seconds. “It’s okay, Percy. It’s all forgiven. And… I’m very proud of you, for helping those muggle-borns, that was an incredibly brave thing to do,” he said earnestly. Percy smiled back weakly, feeling a little shaky, his panicked mind finding it hard to comprehend the unexpected outcome of the conversation.</p><p>But it was slowly seeping in, the realisation that his father had officially forgiven him, that he was <em>proud </em>of him – this, this moment, was what he had become a ghost for. It meant that he was officially part of the family again now, and it meant… that his Dad was proud of him! He hadn’t thought that was even in the realm of possibilities.</p><p>He wished he could hug them right now, so much that it hurt. But at the back of his mind he wondered, vaguely, if it wasn’t almost better this way, that they were forced to communicate, to face each other through the difficult moments, instead of hiding, or at least blurring, their emotions through bodily contact. Would his father have told him that he was proud of him if he could’ve just hugged him instead?</p><p>Arthur glanced at Molly, still looking slightly dazed – it was probably a lot at once for him as well, Percy realized – and Molly gave them a relieved smile.</p><p>“He just came half an hour ago, or I would’ve told you about it,” she explained to her husband, “Ginny sent Pig with him because the wards wouldn’t have let him in without my help. We’re going to have to fix that.”</p><p>Arthur nodded, “We will, of course.” He turned to Percy again, “You’re always welcome here, son.” Then he furrowed his brows. “Ginny? Why Ginny?”</p><p>“I’ve been staying at Hogwarts and I spoke to her yesterday, and she came up with the idea, because she thought it would be better for me to come in person, instead of her writing a letter about it.”</p><p>“Smart of her,” his Mum nodded in appreciation.</p><p>His Dad was still a bit hung up on the details. “You’ve been staying at Hogwarts? For how long?”</p><p>“Since I died,” Percy shrugged.</p><p>His Mum rescued him from having to explain further, “He’s the one who told Minerva to write us, just to leave out that he was a ghost. He thought it would be better if that didn’t cloud the way we felt about him dying.”</p><p>Arthur opened his mouth, looking like he wanted to protest, but Molly didn’t let him, “Let’s not make another fight out of this. It was his decision to make, and I understand why he came to that conclusion. I don’t think he was entirely wrong either. It’s easier to accept that he’s a ghost this way, because at least we can still see him.” She smiled at Percy at the last part.</p><p>But his Dad looked like he disagreed very strongly. “It’s still nothing to celebrate! Are you <em>happy </em>he’s stuck like this forever?” he asked, his voice a strange mixture of pain and anger as he turned back to his son, “Why did you even do this? Didn’t you know when you were disobeying You-Know-Who that you were risking death?”</p><p>Percy felt mildly insulted by the question. “Of course I knew that! And I would’ve been fine with being dead but…” – he wasn’t sure how to continue, remembering his fight with Peeves, but he had promised himself to always be honest with his family – “but I didn’t want to leave without ever apologizing and… coming back to the family again. That would’ve been a terrible way to go. And anyway, being a ghost isn’t that bad, I don’t regret my decision at all,” he declared, and it was mostly true, there was no doubt in his mind that staying had been the right choice – even just for seeing his family again and for the conversations he’d had with his parents today it was worth it.</p><p>“Maybe not now, but you’re going to be a ghost for eternity,” his Mum reminded him, looking incredibly sad, even with what she had said just moments ago. He understood her entirely, but he wasn’t sure he agreed that being a ghost was a terrible fate, not anymore, or at least not right now. He couldn’t help but think of Aaron for a moment, quickly shoving it away.</p><p>“Well, how do you know? Nothing is eternal, Mum. And Ser Nicholas actually has a theory that wizards are probably going to invent a way to kill ghosts not too far in the future, as soon as they realise they can utilize us as weapons or spies – wars have always been a fuel to scientific advancement, you know.”</p><p>And if for nothing else, they would do it to finally get rid of Professor Binns, Emily had remarked after hearing Ser Nicholas’ theory – even Alexandra had laughed at that (probably mostly due to the copious amounts of Ghost Whiskey they had consumed that night, but still).</p><p>His parents sighed simultaneously. “Well, I hope Ser Nicholas is right,” his Mum said, still not looking convinced.</p><p>“And if not, I’ll have plenty of Weasley great-great-grandchildren to entertain myself with,” Percy remarked, in an attempt to cheer her up.</p><p>They both smiled at that, the thought of grandchildren instantly lighting up their faces, as Percy had known it would.</p><p>“Well, Bill and Fleur are married now, so it might not take long now until we see a new generation of Weasleys,” Arthur speculated, looking dreamy. Percy couldn’t supress a grin at the thought either, imagining a tiny Weasley filling the Burrow with squeals and crying again (as long as this war ended, as long as they all survived).</p><p>“Speaking of Bill, don’t you think we should let him know Percy’s here? I’m sure he’s going to want to see you as well,” Molly said suddenly.</p><p><em>Would he? </em>Bill had invited him to his wedding, that had to mean something. And him and Charlie had always been the kindest to Percy out of all his siblings – Charlie even more so than Bill, Percy didn’t think he could remember a single time his second-oldest brother had actively made fun of him, though he had of course laughed at others’ jokes at his expense.</p><p>At the same time Bill had always seemed unreachable to him, making him feel insecure the way no one else could. Percy had spent most of his school days trying to measure up to his oldest brother’s academic accomplishments, because that was the only area he had any chance of competing in – neither his Quidditch nor his social skills had ever been anywhere close to any of his brothers’.</p><p>But Bill wasn’t just smart, he was <em>cool </em>and likeable, and he had always been the brother everyone looked up to, that everyone went to for advice and protection, even though it was <em>Percy </em>who was actually there, at Hogwarts and at the Burrow, helping his parents whenever he could and trying to keep his siblings out of trouble, safe. It had always been hard not to be unbearably jealous of Bill, who seemingly effortlessly made everyone love and admire him, and even though Percy always did everything right, exactly the way he was supposed to, all <em>he</em> ever received for it was mockery and no one taking him seriously (nothing had been more important to young Percy than being taken seriously).</p><p>Of course Percy knew that the way he felt about Bill was unfair, because he <em>was </em>an amazing older brother (much more so than Percy had ever been, if he was being honest with himself – he just wasn’t what any of his siblings needed in a role model, not to mention he had always been a bit self-centred), and he had been a good older brother to Percy as well, never allowing anyone at Hogwarts to make fun of his little brother while he was there (which had probably saved Percy from a lot of suffering), and being a relatively good listener, even when he was clearly uninterested in whatever twelve-year-old or younger Percy liked to rant about. It wasn’t Bill’s fault that Percy simply couldn’t measure up to him, and neither was the bitterness Percy had felt about that in his teenage years, which had caused him to distance himself from his older brothers.</p><p>While Percy had been distracted by his musings about Bill, his parents had already had a full conversation about their oldest son, with the result that Arthur was now going to Bill’s home – Shell Cottage, they called it – and bringing him here. From what Percy had understood of the conversation Bill’s home was a safe house for the Order and was protected by Fidelius, though clearly his father knew the location – and while he’d been aware of course that his family was involved in the war, their lives in constant danger (the hands of the Weasley clock were clear evidence to that), the worry he felt was overwhelming as he was confronted again with how deep every single one of his family members’ involvement in the rebellion against Voldemort truly ran.</p><p>Arthur smiled at them as he left, “I’ll be back soon, hopefully with your brother,” and then Percy and his Mum were alone in the kitchen.</p><p>She turned to him, “Now tell me more about your friends.”</p><p>And Percy did, telling her about meeting Emily and how she had supported him through his entire time as a ghost, about the fight he’d had with Peeves and the mutual toleration (and possibly some type of appreciation) they’d developed in the aftermath, about Aaron (though he left out the fact that Aaron’s laugh was the brightest part of his day, that he couldn’t take his eyes off the other ghost when he was laughing and joking with the children), about George and the other kids, though he’d never have the time to describe all of them, all the things he’d learned about, and from, them in the past month.</p><p> And he told her about Alexandra, the embodiment of a vengeful spirit, who hated everyone and everything – except for <em>him</em>. At least according to Ser Nicholas and the Fat Friar, though it still seemed inconceivable to Percy. Alexandra liking anyone was out of the question, really, not to mention he’d had around three private conversations with her in his entire existence, which had mostly consisted of her glaring at him – though, as Ser Nicholas liked to point out, that was more than anyone else ever got from her (“You’re lucky she even <em>looks</em> at you”). And the Fat Friar had claimed that before Percy had come along she would’ve never participated in their drinking nights, or gotten involved in social activities (and the Carrow hunts could hardly be described as anything other than a social event).</p><p>But even if Percy was uncertain if they were right about that, it still felt flattering that anyone could even believe that someone liked him more than anyone else, someone he wasn’t even close friends with (even if that someone was unpredictable and at the edge of insanity).</p><p>He said all of this to his Mum and she listened and asked questions about everyone and laughed at his stories, and it felt a bit like she was trying to grasp any piece of him she could get, like every word that came out of his mouth was a rare and valuable gem, and Percy knew he would spend a lifetime giving that to her if that was what she needed to live with his death.</p><p>He wasn't sure how much time had passed until the crack of Apparition sounded in front of the door and his Dad walked in again, Bill right behind him.</p><p><em>The scars aren’t even that bad</em>, was Percy’s first thought – he’d seen a lot worse among some of the more insane Hogwarts ghosts, had expected much worse, really. And then Bill’s gaze fell on him and his marred face pulled into a wide grin, and anything even moderately frightening about the scars was washed away, giving way to his expression of unadulterated happiness, as infectious as Bill’s grins always had been. Percy could do nothing to fight the matching smile tugging at his own lips. He hadn’t even realized how much he’d missed Bill, the real Bill, not the twisted version that lived in his fantasies, until he saw him, young and charming and unbroken by the war – changed, certainly, but not broken.</p><p>“Perce! I’ve missed you!” Bill greeted him enthusiastically, and in a way it felt like the first real greeting he’d gotten from anyone in the family, because Bill wasn’t shocked or confused or suspicious, just genuinely happy to see him.</p><p>“I’ve missed you too,” Percy replied, with emotion, “And I’m so sorry for not coming to visit you in the hospital, and for missing your wedding and everything else.”</p><p>He would’ve thought it would be tiring, apologizing again and again to everyone in the family, but every time he did he felt a bit lighter and the words almost felt comforting. And so did Bill’s easy smile as he responded, “It’s all good. You’re here now, that’s all that matters to me.”</p><p>They looked over to their parents, who’d pulled away into a corner, speaking in hushed voices, and Percy wondered if the only reason they’d brought Bill was so they could have a conversation in private – no that he blamed them, they probably had quite a lot to talk about.</p><p>Bill seemed to have come to the same conclusion, because he looked back to Percy and asked, “So Dad said you’ve been at Hogwarts the past month, right? What’s it like there?”</p><p>Percy pulled a face. “Not very good. The Carrows are... cruel people, even to children, and especially to the disobedient ones.” He met Bill’s gaze, knowing what he really wanted to hear about.</p><p>“But Ginny’s tough, she stands up to them, doesn’t let them intimidate her,” he said with a slight laugh, that was in equal parts proud and regretful.</p><p>“Yeah, I know,” Bill nodded, smiling as well, though Percy could tell that he was just as worried, “What about you? Are getting along with all the Hogwarts ghosts?”</p><p>Percy couldn’t help but be reminded of Aaron again, of their conversation last night (it felt like it had been years ago), the coldness this morning, and the way his heart clenched in his chest sometimes, when he looked particularly beautiful.</p><p>“Yes, I am, I’ve actually made quite a few friends,” he said, smiling, “And I’ve been spending a lot of time with some of the children as well, I quite enjoy keeping their spirits up with all that’s happening. I just wish they could stay out of it, they’re too young for a war.” He sighed.</p><p>“Yeah, I know, but that’s not how it works,” Bill chuckled humourlessly, “We were even younger, remember?”</p><p>And Percy did, even if it was long ago and he’d barely been a child back then, but he remembered hushed voices, having to be quiet, remembered funerals and misery. And most of all he remembered it stopping, and everything being louder again and more exciting, and how the war had become a distant, foggy nightmare and legend, along with all the people lost in it (like Mum’s brothers, who existed on photographs and in stories and in the sad look in her eyes when she talked about them).</p><p>“Yes, I do… Doesn’t make it any easier the second time around though.”</p><p>Bill snorted, “Definitely not.”</p><p>(The second time around Mum lost a son, and her children learned what it was like to lose a brother, like she had back then, except she had lost two, both, of her brothers, and neither of them had come back as a ghost – Percy sometimes wondered how she still had tears and love left to give, and so much more of it than most people did too).</p><p>“What about Ron? I’m assuming he’s on the run with Harry, right?”</p><p>Bill nodded silently, looking like he shared the painful worry Percy felt, because that meant they had no idea what was happening to their youngest brother, other than that his life was in constant danger.</p><p>“So he doesn’t know?” Percy asked.</p><p>Bill took a few seconds to answer, thoughtful, and his voice was quiet when he did, “He does. He was at Shell Cottage when we got the news.”</p><p>He sighed at Percy’s curious gaze and his eyes flicked to their parents for a moment. “No one knows, so don’t say a word. He deserted Harry and Hermione in November, in… a moment of weakness, and he stayed with us for a few weeks, until he managed to find them again. So, he knows.”</p><p>Percy hummed, taking in the new information, sort of relieved that Ron had been with the family until recently, meaning he was probably fine. “I won’t tell anyone, promise.”</p><p>Bill nodded, “Good.”</p><p>There was a pause in the conversation then, and Percy thought of Aaron again, and then looked at his oldest brother, who had social skills and experience and who never judged.</p><p>“Do you think ghosts can pursue romantic relationships?” he asked suddenly, voice low, because this was a conversation he didn’t need his parents to overhear.</p><p>Bill raised his eyebrows in surprise. “Uh… why not? I mean, if you’re actually interested in someone and the feeling is mutual I don’t see why it wouldn’t work.”</p><p>Then he frowned, “Well, as long as you’re both ghosts, not sure if it’s a good idea otherwise.”</p><p>Something eased in Percy’s chest – Bill’s simple, straight-forward thinking was exactly what he’d needed to hear. “Yeah, of course,” he agreed with the last part.</p><p>Bill grinned, “So who’s the poor ghost girl that’s caught you eye?”</p><p>Percy glared (he’d practiced his ghostly death glare to near perfection with Emily, though somehow it still only affected a few First Years, and Bill was clearly unfazed, unsurprisingly). “Guy, not girl,” he corrected, “He’s a… friend at the castle.”</p><p>It took Bill a moment to process that new information, then a terrified expression crossed his face. “It’s not Ser Nicholas, is it? Please tell me you haven’t fallen for guy who’s head can be pulled off at will!”</p><p>“Don’t you think the 600-year age difference would be a bigger issue?” Percy inquired, mildly amused.</p><p>Bill was horrified. “I didn’t even think of that… What’s the average age of Hogwarts ghosts?” he asked, though he looked like he really didn’t want to know.</p><p>“Around two hundred years, I’d guess,” Percy responded, and paused only for a moment before continuing, because he had years of teasing and mockery to pay back and he definitely wasn’t letting this opportunity pass him up, “But don’t worry, he’s only a hundred.”</p><p>He shrugged cheerfully and then burst out laughing at Bill’s expression, which was a worrying mixture between shock and rage, looking ready to beat up whichever 100-year-old had caught Percy’s fancy with his bare fists, as much as fist-fighting with a ghost would not work in his favour.</p><p>Percy decided to put him out of his misery, “Just kidding, he’s 20.”</p><p>Bill laughed disbelievingly, “Thank Merlin! I think I preferred you without a sense of humour.”</p><p>A thoughtful look crossed his face. “He doesn’t look like a <em>child</em>, does he?”</p><p>“I’m not a paedophile!” Percy huffed, “No, he just died this December, like me.”</p><p>“Okay, good, just checking.”</p><p>It was good to be back with his family, Percy decided as they shared a smile.</p><p>Just as the thought crossed his mind, there was a loud crack in front of the door and any pleasant feelings he’d had disappeared in favour of the panic settling deep in his stomach.</p><p>“That must be the twins,” Arthur explained quickly, “They come by to visit quite often.”</p><p><em>The twins</em>. The nightmares of his childhood, but also the siblings he’d been closest to, in age if in nothing else. And then they were standing in the door and Percy watched as their expression went from surprised, when they saw Bill, to shocked, when they spotted him – simultaneously of course, because they were identical and that was just how they worked.</p><p>Except that there was something wrong with them now, something wrong with <em>one</em> of them – George, he was quite certain, he’d always been fairly good at telling them apart – and it felt horrible… One of his brothers had lost an <em>ear </em>and he hadn’t known?</p><p>He was the one to break the sudden silence that had fallen over the kitchen, after a moment of the twins standing frozen, staring at him. “George? What happened to you ear?” he asked, an edge of desperation to his voice that surprised even him – though of course seeing one of his brothers <em>mutilated </em>would throw him off.</p><p>“Snape cut it off while we were rescuing Harry from his home in July,” Bill said, his matter-of-fact tone doing nothing to quench the horror and anger Percy felt at the explanation.</p><p>But the short interlude had put the twins into motion again, and they came further inside the kitchen with a curt greeting to everyone, but never taking their eyes off Percy for longer than a moment, wary looks on their faces – like they weren’t sure how to react to him yet. They weren’t like Mum, or even Bill to an extent, who offered acceptance almost unconditionally.</p><p>“I’m sorry. I was a fool, I was-“ he paused for a moment, looking for the right words to use for the twins.</p><p>“-a ministry-loving, family-disowning, power-hungry moron,” Fred finished for him, a wild glint in his eyes as he stared Percy down.</p><p>“Exactly,” Percy said without hesitation.</p><p>And that seemed to be enough for him because he smiled suddenly, brightly, and so did his twin. “It’s good to have you back,” George said simply, serious for once.</p><p>“Is it true, what McGonagall wrote? That you were helping muggle-borns escape the country?” Fred asked.</p><p>“Well, yes, I was forging passports for some of them. I don’t know if any of them really managed to escape though,” Percy shrugged, addressing a sore point he usually preferred not to think about, because he didn’t want to imagine his death having been for nothing.</p><p>But the twins didn’t seem to be particularly bothered by that, grinning at him. “Perfect Percy forging official documents?” Fred asked.</p><p>“What has the world come to?” George added.</p><p>Molly made a disapproving noise at their mockery, but Percy was pretty sure he detected a hint of admiration in their teasing tone, which was more than he’d hoped for, more than what he’d ever truly gotten from them.</p><p>“You behave yourselves,” Molly said sternly to the twins, “Arthur and I will leave you boys alone for a while so you can chat in peace.”</p><p>“We’ll be in the shed in case you kill each other,” Arthur added with a smile.</p><p>The brothers shared looks of confusion as their parents left them to themselves for no clear reason. Though as Percy considered it he realized that it might be good for them to spend some time together without their parents moderating the conversation, as they no doubt would otherwise. He wondered if this was what they had been discussing while Bill and him were talking about Ron and Aaron.</p><p>When the door closed behind them, George swallowed. “I’m sorry too,” he said then, gaze fixed somewhere beside Percy’s head, not looking directly at him, “We weren’t very nice to you back when you were still around.”</p><p>What was it with his siblings and suddenly apologizing to him when he was clearly the prat of the family? He had no idea how to respond.</p><p>“Well… it was funny,” he said, forcing a smile.</p><p>“True,” Fred agreed, with a short-lived grin, “but not for you.”</p><p>Well, he couldn’t argue with that. “Uh yeah, well, it’s fine,” Percy shrugged it off.</p><p>He realized with surprise, then, that he didn’t entirely mean it. Or he did, it <em>was </em>fine, but it wasn’t forgotten. It was hard to forget something that had shaped his day-to-day life so strongly throughout most of his life. And it wasn’t all that easy to forgive either, as much as he felt like he didn’t have the right to hold a grudge when he’d done much worse things to the family.</p><p>Thankfully Fred seemed just as eager to drop the topic as he was, and asked, “So what has been going on with you, Percy?”</p><p>“I’ve been at Hogwarts since I died. Just spending time with some of the other ghosts, and the students, nothing very exciting.”</p><p>“Well, I wouldn’t say that,” Bill remarked, and only his eyes betrayed his amusement, “Percy was just telling me about his little crush before you guys came.”</p><p>Percy glared at him. “You’re a terrible person, Bill.”</p><p>There should be an official family rule against telling the twins about any romantic experiences of family members, Percy decided as they suddenly grinned at him, a devilish look in their eyes.</p><p>“Percy has a crush?”</p><p>“Who’s the unfortunate soul that has caught our dear brother’s fancy?”</p><p>Percy rolled his eyes, knowing it was better to just give in, before they annoyed the information out of him. “His name is Aaron, he’s a friend of mine, a new ghost at Hogwarts.”</p><p>“He’s a bloke?” Fred asked, looking genuinely surprised.</p><p>“Didn’t you date Penny in school?” asked George.</p><p>Percy snorted, “I don’t see how the two are mutually exclusive. And anyway, the relationship between Penny and me was mostly platonic.”</p><p>“Platonic? You spent your entire summer in your room writing letters to her!” Fred protested.</p><p>“Yes, because she was the only person who was actually interested in what I said,” Percy huffed.</p><p>They fell silent after that, mulling over his words.</p><p>“Huh. So you’re into guys as well,” George concluded finally.</p><p>“Yeah,” Percy said, and while he was fairly certain his family wasn’t particularly conservative in regards to sexuality, he felt a flicker of doubt in that moment, with all their confusion and questions.</p><p>But he needn’t have worried, because the twins didn’t seem bothered in the least, moving on to a different topic instantly.</p><p>“Okay, that’s fine, but I didn’t think ghosts could even have crushes? Isn’t that against the rules, or something?” Fred wondered.</p><p>Bill laughed at that, “Against which rules?”</p><p>“You know, we’re forgetting about the important question here,” George interrupted, “Are your-“ he gestured at his crotch area, winking, “-bits still working?”</p><p>As his brothers burst into laughter around him Percy groaned, burying his head into his hands. “I’m not answering that.”</p><p>“Why not? It’s a purely scientific question,” George grinned.</p><p>Bill was still fighting to regain his composure but Fred nodded along seriously, “Yeah, Percy, aren’t you glad we’re trying to further our education?”</p><p>Percy let himself laugh at that, not allowing the annoyance, that was like second nature to him in the presence of Fred and George, get in the way. He wanted to be better this time, a better brother, better company, and he wanted to enjoy the twins’ sense of humour, because they <em>were</em> very funny when they weren’t being genuinely mean.</p><p>“I’m still not talking about it.”</p><p>He was honestly surprised that all he received in return was some huffing from Fred, and a smirk from George, no insult about being no fun or prudish as he’d expected. But Fred was looking thoughtful, and that never boded well for anyone.</p><p>“But imagine if it did work… The realm of possibilities… You could have sex while floating in the air!” he said finally.</p><p>“You could have sex inside a cloud!” George continued the line of thought</p><p>Bill snorted and Percy shook his head at his brothers’ antics.</p><p>“Hide it all you want but I know you’re considering it right now,” Fred told him.</p><p>“Shut it.”</p><p>But once the twins got going they didn’t stop, grinning wildly at each other, and George added, “You could have sex inside a <em>wall</em>.”</p><p>“Why would he want to have sex inside a wall?” Bill inquired, chuckling.</p><p>“Well, I don’t know, what’s it like being in a wall?” Fred asked Percy.</p><p>He wasn’t sure how to explain, what it felt like – to be in complete darkness, blind and without orientation, not being able to feel or see or smell, and the only way you found your way out was by moving until you saw light again, and if you stayed too long, giving in to curiosity, it started feeling like you didn’t exist, because there was nothing around you, no movement, no sensations, and there was no <em>space</em> for you to exist, all that existed was the unmovable mass of blackness and nothing else.</p><p>“Definitely not like you’d want to have sex in it,” he replied finally, and his tone of voice shifted in the end, going quieter, because the door opened again, and this wasn’t a conversation their parents needed to partake in, really.</p><p>“Glad to see you’re all still in one piece,” Arthur greeted them.</p><p>“Yeah, well, it was hardly our choice,” Fred said, face pulled into an exaggerated frown of disappointment as he waved his arm towards Percy.</p><p>“Oh, I’m sure you’ll find a way past the fundamental laws of magic,” Bill commented teasingly.</p><p>“Don’t challenge them, they’ll actually do it,” Percy snorted.</p><p>“So we can finally start pranking you again?” Fred asked.</p><p>“We’ll do anything!” George finished.</p><p>Their parents looked happy as they stood in the doorway watching them, and Percy smiled. But it was getting late and he’d promised Catherine, a Hufflepuff second year George was friends with, to help her with her Potions homework, so he knew he had to leave now. He said as much to his family.</p><p>“You’re tutoring Second-Years in you free time?” Bill asked, looking amused.</p><p>“Well, <em>someone</em> has to make sure they don’t neglect their studies,” Percy declared.</p><p>Fred gasped dramatically. “Oh thank Merlin, good old perfect Percy is back!” he exclaimed.</p><p>“We were starting to get worried,” George said, putting his hand over his heart.</p><p>Rolling his eyes Percy said good-bye to his family, promising to come by and visit again soon. They were all smiling at him as he left, floating out into the evening darkness (though his Mum was a bit teary-eyed) and he felt so much lighter than he’d had in a very long time.</p><p>It was almost easy to believe Ginny’s words in that moment, that his family loved him, that they had missed him. And he wasn’t sure he’d feel the same way tomorrow, or in a week, but his Dad had said that he was always welcome home, so he could just come and reassure himself again.</p><p>Of course it couldn’t be the same as it was, nothing could be the same, because he was dead and he had changed, and so had everyone else, but for the first time he wasn’t sure if that was necessarily a bad thing. Because things hadn’t been perfect back then either, and they would never be perfect, but some things could be better. And as much talking to his family was exactly like it always had been, comfortable and teasing the way it was supposed to be, it had also changed in some ways, was kinder and more honest, maybe.</p><p>It gave him hope that things could be different as much as they could be the same, that they wouldn’t repeat the same mistakes again. And as he replayed today’s events over and over in his mind, not even the miserable dripping of the rain around him could erase that hope, and the overwhelming happiness he felt.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>This chapter was a tough one, lots of characters I didn't know how to write, but I hope I got the characterisations mostly right :)</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0009"><h2>9. Chapter 9</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Trigger Warning: there's a brief conversation in this chapter where past sexual assault is mentioned, if you don't want to read that you can skip the chapter, or just the part between the "***" symbols.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Since he’d died Percy didn’t think he’d seen Ginny as happy as when he joined her in the Gryffindor common room, after basically writing Catherine’s homework for her, and told her about his reconciliation with Mum, Dad, Bill, Fred and George (which really only left Charlie and Ron – Charlie was never going to make it very hard, but Ron was a bit more complicated, and a bit more involved, what with being best friends with Harry). Percy could tell she really wanted to say “I told you so”, but she refrained and just smiled while he spoke.</p><p>Once they had discussed their family in great detail – “How was Mum looking?” “Has Dad been overworking himself?” “Did Fred and George say anything about their secret new invention?” “How’s Fleur doing?” – they settled down to play wizarding chess, something they were both severely out of practice in, as Seamus pointed out in regular intervals while watching them.</p><p>They decided very quickly that they would have to start playing more, because Dad would be deeply disappointed if he knew that his children’s chess skills were being made fun of – Uncle Bilius had dedicated a great deal of time to training his nieces and nephews to be masterful chess players while he’d been alive, and his efforts wouldn’t be in vain.</p><p>So Percy and Ginny spent hours playing match after match, while Neville and Seamus sat by them, cheering them on (or making fun of them, in Seamus’ case) and discussing their various DADA teachers. It was a fascinating conversation (he wasn’t sure if he should laugh or cry about the way the teachers had just gotten more and more murderous with time) and Percy had to admit that, as much as he liked to complain about all the crazy DADA teachers he’d had, they’d definitely had it worse.</p><p>Still, he could join in with some ridiculous stories of the DADA teachers of his first four years. Ginny was crying with laughter (and subsequently lost the game, at least) when he told them how in third year he’d campaigned for months (very unsuccessfully) for a petition to get rid of the entire subject altogether, since he’d decided that the class was clearly putting teachers as well as students at risk.</p><p>As funny as Seamus, Neville and Ginny thought that was, Percy felt like it was a perfectly valid request from a thirteen-year-old, after in first year their teacher had vanished in the Forbidden Forest while preparing a lesson (though that was very much deserved, considering that Professor had had an obsession with letting wild animals loose on his students) and their second year teacher had been fired for having an affair with a Fifth Year, and clearly both of these things might not have happened if it wasn’t for the cursed position.</p><p>It was no wonder that people didn’t trust Dumbledore after all that! (Though he decided not to point that out to three Dumbledore’s Army members.)</p><p>Nevertheless, it was nice to talk to the Neville and Seamus again, the last time he’d met them they’d been fourteen and small, but they were very different now, and it wasn’t just the fresh cut on Seamus’ cheek (which he’d gotten for not torturing his classmates, apparently – what a world they were living in). They were grown up now, and Percy felt a strange sense of pride, even though he knew he’d had little to do with that, but he <em>had </em>been their Prefect and Head Boy and he’d led them through their first three years at Hogwarts and it was hard not to still think of them as his children, his responsibility.</p><p>He had new children now though, George and Leon and the rest, and he loved taking care of them too, this time not as a step on the ladder to the Ministry, to ambition, but as the end of the ladder – for now at least. He talked about them as well, because Neville expressed his interest in the well-being of the younger students. To Percy’s surprise he seemed especially worried about the Slytherin students, since Percy couldn’t tell him much about those.</p><p>He promised the boy to look into it more, maybe together with Alexandra, who was a Slytherin herself. Unfortunately, she hated children even more than she hated everyone else, but he decided he would try his best to convince her to help – if Ser Nicholas and the Fat Friar were right he might even have a chance.</p><p>After that evening he spent a lot of time with Ginny and her friends, he was introduced to all of the DA, played chess and hung out with them. He could sense their cautious respect for him, the deference in some of their eyes when they stared at his ghostly shape, like he was some symbol of resistance and sacrifice. He felt the same way about them sometimes, because as much as they were within the “safety” of Hogwarts (locked inside with wild animals in human skin) they were soldiers in the war too, and you could tell, from their hardened, determined faces, the bitter way they spoke sometimes, their twitchiness.</p><p>It took him a while to realise that the twitchiness, the nervous fidgeting, was less out of fear and more out of restlessness (how some of these people weren’t in Gryffindor was a mystery to him). As Neville had explained, since Luna’s disappearance they were being a lot more careful and weren’t doing nearly as much as they had before, as Percy himself knew well enough, since GOD had been disbanded as well, and turned into a Carrow-hunting organisation.</p><p>So they were restless, fidgety and thirsty for some action, and Percy was a bit worried about Ginny, that she would do something reckless and stupid to ease the feeling of helplessness. On the particularly bad days, when the air was vibrating with the whirring and buzzing of the young soldiers’ minds, he told them all about his Carrow-hunts, the way he’d always done for Aaron, about the Death Eaters’ grimaces and curses (sometimes he even mimicked them, trying to get the students to laugh), and relayed their vicious messages to the Carrows at night.</p><p>It was mid-February when he finally had a more effective idea – Ginny had told him that the DA had started out as study sessions, practically (she’d said it with a grin, telling him that now he really couldn’t disapprove of it anymore), but the current members hardly needed any training anymore. So, after consulting Neville and Ginny, he picked out some of the children he knew well and trusted, and who he thought were brave enough to thrive during secret, illegal defence lessons.</p><p>George, Leon, Natasha (the Ravenclaw girl was Leon’s girlfriend now, finally – after he’d spent months trying to work up the courage to ask her out, she’d been the one to make the first move), Catherine (as bad as she was at Potions, her natural skill at shield spells was severely wasted in the current curriculum), Flora (a shy fourth year who was especially bitter about the Carrows because DADA had always been her passion) and Theo (who talked back to the Carrows at any given opportunity because he was a reckless idiot who needed to channel his energy elsewhere) were the first ones he wanted to send to the Room of Requirement to train with the older students.</p><p>He had a discussion about it with the Fat Friar, who thought it was irresponsible to put the children into danger like that, and Emily agreed, accusing Percy of neglecting the children’s safety in favour of his sister’s, even though Percy had told her his worries regarding Ginny’s restlessness <em>in confidence</em>, which escalated the fight into something much bigger.</p><p>It wasn’t pretty, and Percy told Emily he regretted ever befriending her because she was insensitive and incapable of understanding other people’s feelings, and she called him a self-centred prick who was manipulating children to his own, selfish purposes.</p><p>Percy was close to calling it off that night (no one could get in his head like Emily did), but they apologised and made up the next day, and Emily conceded that it might not be the worst idea.</p><p>She’d talked to Aaron (Percy tried to ignore the sting of jealousy at that, because he hadn’t talked to Aaron privately in two days) and he’d said that the children were in danger already and this would only help them, because Theo couldn’t control himself and mouthed off to psychopaths, Flora’s self-esteem was in pieces and she was driving herself mad with stress over school, Catherine’s mother was in Azkaban for being muggle-born and she feared for her family’s life, George cried himself to sleep sometimes because he was scared and <em>hated </em>school even though he loved school and Leon woke up screaming from nightmares about Voldemort.</p><p>The Fat Friar didn’t stand in their way, only helped organise a network of ghosts to watch the Carrows’ and Snape’s every move while the kids were in the Room of Requirement so they wouldn’t get caught. And the looks of pure excitement on their faces when Percy told them about the plan, and the exhilaration and joy in their eyes the day after the first session definitely convinced Percy that he was doing the right thing. Ginny’s gratitude and the way she hugged Neville that evening (Percy knew the hug was meant for him) were only a bonus.</p><p> </p><p>Another good thing that came out of his friendship with the DA was the discovery of the Room of Requirement, which was practically made for ghosts (Emily was convinced that it actually <em>was</em>, originally, made for ghosts, because why else would someone create a room like that – Percy disagreed, the reason was probably laziness, because wizards were in love with luxury and people or creatures or buildings or spells serving them without them having to lift a finger). Somehow none of Percy’s ghost friends had known about the room – though maybe that wasn’t all that strange considering that there was some pretty heavy magic surrounding it, so you couldn’t find it by simply flying though the wall.</p><p>Now that they had found it though, they were never letting go. The possibilities the room offered once Neville had given Percy a thorough explanation of the exact mechanics were endless, it allowed them to have parties with proper decoration (that they could move around without the assistance of the house elves, who had enough on their plate anyway) and listen to music from a CD-player Seamus had lent to them (he didn’t have much use for it currently) whenever they wanted to. Instantly, the room became the main hideout for Percy’s ghost friends when the DA wasn’t using it – though sometimes they shared it as well, especially Emily and Aaron got along very well with the DA members.</p><p>Ginny had definitely taken a liking to Aaron, deciding very quickly that he was a Gryffindor through and through (which he really was, though Percy could see the Hufflepuff in him as well, and Aaron just laughed at their analysis of his personality) and spilling all her hatred for the Death Eaters and elitist pureblood society to him in the name of education, since he wasn’t as well-versed in British wizarding politics as everyone else.</p><p>Percy was glad they got along, though things had been strange between him and Aaron since the night he’d first talked to Ginny. They barely spent time together anymore, just the two of them, their Quidditch pitch meet-ups a thing of the past. They still saw a lot of each other in the afternoons, when they were with the kids, but even then they often split up to spend time with different groups, there were too many children for them to be able to afford to stay together all the time.</p><p>And other than that they didn’t have much time for each other – Percy was hanging out more with his sister and her friends and Aaron was in the kitchens or with the Hogwarts musicians, who he was getting along with more and more apparently.</p><p>Percy tried not to be jealous. He knew it was important for Aaron to be around people, to make friends, he was much more extroverted than Percy after all, not to mention that he was a bit excluded form Percy’s friend group due to Alexandra’s dislike of him – Percy had wanted to have a word with her about it, but now he was saving her goodwill for convincing her to talk to the Slytherin children, so that would have to wait.</p><p>So he understood why Aaron was spending time with other people, he just wished it wasn’t at the cost of his time with Percy, and he wished it didn’t feel like there was a wall between them, like they weren’t talking to each other anymore, just saying weightless things to feed the silence.</p><p>He wondered if Aaron had felt what he had that night, if that was why he was being distant, because he knew that Percy liked him and didn’t feel the same way. There was no way he hadn’t felt it really, in that look they’d shared. Percy hadn’t imagined the intimacy of that moment, when he’d felt that bittersweet squeezing in his heart, like he’d do anything for Aaron.</p><p>He didn’t think he’d ever felt like that with anyone before – Penny had made him feel comfortable and warm and at home and Oliver had set his pulse racing, but he’d never felt the kind of longing he felt when he saw Aaron across the Great Hall, engaged in a passionate discussion with his flutist friend and gesticulating wildly, or when he watched him hum the melody of whatever muggle song they were listening to in the Room of Requirement, his face relaxed and his foot tapping along to the beat. He felt like he’d burn Hogwarts down to make Aaron look at him again, the way he’d had that night.</p><p>It was worse, now that he only saw glimpses of him, glimpses of all the sides of him he knew, and the more private, intimate parts he’d gotten to see over the past month stayed hidden. He’d been having trouble sleeping lately, becoming restless and nervous whenever he let his mind drift, allowed himself to think and dwell on things.</p><p>It felt wrong, not to share his mornings with Aaron, and he didn’t want to face that his feelings were unrequited, because he didn’t want to spend all of eternity pining after someone who wasn’t interested.</p><p>Okay, maybe that was a touch too dramatic, he had all of eternity to <em>move on</em>, after all, but ghosts weren’t particularly good at moving on, were they? They settled into their habits, even if it took a few decades, and found it hard to break out – as Emily liked to point out, it wasn’t much different from the way the living were, they just did it for a lot longer.</p><p>There weren’t many alternatives either, because romance really <em>was</em> hard to find among the undead, Fred had been very right about that – there just wasn’t that much to choose from (within a reasonable age range), and most ghosts weren’t romantically inclined anyway.</p><p>So sometimes it felt like Aaron felt like his last chance at happiness, at having someone to share eternity with (aside from Emily of course, but that was different, and considerably less monogamous, obviously). Because his family was only living a few more decades, and they were alive, and he was dead, and lived a very different type of existence than they did, he couldn’t share his life with them.</p><p>But that idyllic hope for a happily-ever-after was not the main reason he wished they were still the way they’d been before – he just missed Aaron, missed his eyes, the way he laughed, the way his mere presence made everything make sense.</p><p>And he asked himself <em>why</em>, because Aaron had liked him too, as a friend at least, and why would that have to change? And he’d thought for a moment that night that they felt the same, because Aaron had said that he was the only person with who he didn’t feel like he was wasting his time, and that had seemed meaningful. So what had changed?</p><p>Had Aaron decided that he wasn’t good enough after all? Percy could understand that completely, and with all the hours he’d spent thinking about it he’d compiled a list of reasons why Aaron would decide he disliked him after all.</p><p>First, he was annoying. He knew that to be true, had been told so by pretty much everyone in his life. Maybe the effect had only set in a month too late with Aaron.</p><p>Second, Aaron hated bystanders with a passion, he’d said as much, quite often and with conviction. And Percy had been a bystander for most of the time he’d been at the Ministry, and his childhood too, being the great rule-follower he was. He was, in reality, a cowardly and terrible person.</p><p>Third, he was boring. Much more boring than Aaron’s musician friends anyway.</p><p>Fourth, he wasn’t very attractive. Maybe Aaron had realised Percy was romantically interested in him and had started to feel disgusted by him.</p><p>Fifth, he talked too much. Aaron’s ghost thing had probably decided that he was a waste of time after all, since he talked so much about things no one cared about.</p><p>The list went on and on, but these seemed to be the most realistic theories. They made Percy feel miserable and worthless, and he tried very hard not to wallow in it. Because the longer he spent thinking about Aaron, the more he felt like there was something wrong with him, like no one could possibly love him, especially not his family, who he had betrayed and disowned, and who had never liked him anyways (except for Mum, he’d never doubted her love him).</p><p>He was glad he had so much to occupy himself with, between the kids, Ginny, his friends, leaving him with little time for sleeping and thinking. And of course he visited his various family members (aside from Ron and Charlie) quite often as well, even though he still wasn't always sure if he was welcome, if them being kind to him wasn't a form of pity. Especially with Fred and George, who were remarkably well-behaved around him – as much as they were capable of being well-behaved at least.</p><p>But whenever he doubted their love he thought of the twins’ excitement when Percy had first come to visit their shop, and they’d showed him around, and even though they never needed approval from anyone, when Percy had told them how incredible and impressive it all was (and he’d meant it, because they had accomplished a dream only they had ever believed in) they’d been speechless for a moment, which said more than any words ever could.</p><p>Then there’d been that look in Fred's eyes and he’d had asked Percy, suddenly, "Who did it?" and Percy had known exactly what he meant, because if one of his siblings was murdered he would ask the same thing. As he'd met Fred's hard eyes after he’d responded, he had not envied Yaxley if the twins ever got hold of him.</p><p>And he remembered the boyish softness on George's face when he'd asked, right after, "Was it quick?" and Percy hadn't known what else to say than "Quicker than I would've expected", because that was true at least, and he’d hoped that was enough. But he’d known they loved him in that moment, and he clung onto that whenever the self-hatred surfaced.</p><p>Sometimes the ruthless way of the twins was more comforting than any of Mum's reassuring words.</p><p>***</p><p>It was March by the time he approached Alexandra to talk to her about the Slytherins. He’d spotted her by the entrance of the Great Hall during dinner, glaring at the Carrows and Snape at the teachers’ table. He thought it was as good a moment as any to strike up a conversation.</p><p>He stepped next to her. "Why do you hate them so much?" he spoke the question he’d been thinking about since Emily had first introduced her as the leader of GOD, and also a Rockwood.</p><p>"Because it's been 60 years since my husband killed me and they’re all still the same.”</p><p>She’d pulled back, flying through the walls, away from the Great Hall, and Percy followed her on instinct, taken aback by her disconcerting and unexpectedly frank reply.</p><p>"Your husband?" he asked, incredulous, once she’d stopped and turned around to face him once again, in a dark crook in a hallway.</p><p>"He was dissatisfied that I couldn't produce a living heir for him."</p><p>"And he murdered you for it?"</p><p>She was silent for a while.</p><p>"No."</p><p>Now Percy was even more confused, but he felt like if he said one more word it would be too much.</p><p>"But he might as well have. I was just the one to say the spell."</p><p>Percy sat frozen, not daring to look at her.</p><p>"Why?" he whispered.</p><p>Suddenly her hand was on his face, turning it towards her, her touch cool and liquid-like, the way ghostly touch always was.</p><p>"Look at me when I speak," she hissed, icy stare on him – never before had she looked at him like that, at other people maybe, but never at him.</p><p>"My first two children were born dead. I had long given up on children by the time the third came – I'd given up after the first one already, but my husband never did. He kept trying and trying, despite how much I asked him not to. And then the third, she was born alive. But she was born sick, with an unbalanced magical core, and after a year the doctors said that the only way to save her was to mute her magical core – to turn her into a Squib."</p><p>Percy thought he knew exactly where this was going, and he didn't want to hear it.</p><p>Her voice was cold, her stare unmoving. "He killed her that night. And the next day he wanted to try again. I told him <em>over my dead body</em>, and I meant it."</p><p>She paused for a moment, her eyes never leaving his.</p><p>"If you tell anyone you'll never set foot in Hogwarts again," she said then.</p><p>Percy nodded mutely.</p><p>And he left it at that, because this was not the right time to ask for favours. He knew that as much as she'd looked like she hated him while she'd told her story, she was placing a lot of trust in him. He didn’t think she’d ever told anyone about it before - he hoped talking about it had helped at least.</p><p>***</p><p>It was a week later that he approached her again, breaking the frozen silence that had stayed between them since their last conversation. It was early evening, though the sky was black already, and Aaron and him had spent most of the afternoon trying to cheer up George, who was not coping well with the darkness and the cold that just wouldn’t end, even though it was spring already. And the Carrows, who’s rule was becoming stricter and harder with each day, didn’t help. The ever-growing desperation and misery in the Ravenclaw, Gryffindor and Hufflepuff common rooms had nested itself in his chest, and with it the urgency to reach out to the Slytherins as soon as possible, because no one should be alone in times like these.</p><p>He was determined to convince Alexandra this time, and when he found her in the Parlour he asked, without preamble, "Want to help me talk to some of the Slytherin children?"</p><p>"No," she said, in her harshly indifferent way, but her gaze was focused on him, not looking past him the she had been doing the past week.</p><p>"They share a house with monsters like Crabbe and Goyle and their head of house is Amycus Carrow. They're the only ones Aaron and I don't talk to, so we know next to nothing about how they're coping. Not very well though, that's for sure."</p><p>She looked at him with an expression that on her face practically qualified as a smirk. "Are trying to appeal to my humanity, Percy?"</p><p>She always called him by his first name, not his last like she did with everyone else, almost like she'd noticed his aversion to the Weasley name when they'd first met.</p><p>He wouldn't have minded much anymore, but he still preferred his first name – he felt like a different person now that he was mostly known by his first name, somewhat separated from the wizarding world, the world of the living, but in a comforting way.</p><p>He shrugged. “Whatever it takes to convince you to help.”</p><p>“You want <em>me </em>to talk to children? Are you trying to traumatize them further?”</p><p> “They’ll manage.” After a moment of consideration he added, “<em>You’ll </em>manage.”</p><p>She was silent for a few seconds, and he knew he’d won her over.</p><p>“Fine,” she sighed, “I’ll talk to them. You stay out of it until I ask you not to.”</p><p>Not exactly how he’d wanted it to go, but it was better than nothing, so he agreed. She headed off, clearly deciding that the conversation was done, and Percy went to find Aaron before they started their nightly patrols to tell him the good news. He’d been worrying about the Slytherin students as well, and had convinced Flora and Natasha to try to talk to some of them, since he couldn’t be of much help with Alexandra.</p><p>To his surprise he found Aaron out on the Quidditch pitch, sitting by himself in the darkness. He was hunched over himself, head buried on his hands, and suddenly Percy wasn’t sure if he shouldn’t just leave, because he’d never seen Aaron like this before, and it felt like this was too intimate a moment to disturb. He could just leave, as silently as he’d come, because that’s what ghosts were like – silent and transparent and you wouldn’t notice them until they made you notice them.</p><p>But he couldn’t bear to leave him alone like this, so he sat down next to Aaron and greeted him softly, “Hey.”</p><p>Aaron lifted his head slowly. “Hi,” he responded, and as far as Percy could tell he didn’t seem too bothered by his appearance, his gaze warm somehow and looking barely surprised, like Percy suddenly joining him was the most natural and logical thing in the world.</p><p>So he asked, “What’s wrong?”</p><p>Aaron was silent for a moment, then he sighed. “Do you ever feel like you’re… barely here? Like if the smallest part of you was taken away you’d stop existing at all?”</p><p>Percy did feel like that, all the time, but he didn’t interrupt</p><p>“Because... I can’t touch anything. Nothing I do makes an impact, I just go through it, like even the walls and the grass and the universe are ignoring my existence.”</p><p>He swiped his hand at the grass in frustration, and his hand moved through, and the grass stayed exactly the same. They both stared at it for a moment, and Percy felt the same frustration, the same helplessness Aaron did. Aaron clenched his jaw and looked away, and then continued, “And the rain just falls through us, and we can’t <em>feel </em>anything. I’ve forgotten what warmth feels like because I don’t feel anything except slightly cold, <em>all the time</em>. It’s always <em>cold</em>.”</p><p>There was real desperation in his voice now, and Percy didn’t know what to say, because that just what it was like, being a ghost, it was always a bit cold, and no amount of clothing you imagined onto yourself could change that –he’d always liked the cold, so he didn’t mind that much, but Aaron was a warm person, someone who he could best imagine by a fireplace, or dancing on the streets on a summer night, and that comfortable warmth was gone for ghosts.</p><p>He remembered for a moment Ser Nicholas’ firm belief in new inventions, technology, advancement, because he’d watched the world change as more and more things were discovered and invented, and he wondered whether the warmth was really gone for good. And he thought of the Room of Requirement for a moment, which could grant wished, even to ghosts, but then he pushed it all away – Aaron didn’t need empty promises, hopeful platitudes, he needed him to listen, to understand, the way Aaron always did for him.</p><p>So he nodded slightly to Aaron, telling him he understood, and looked at him expectantly, silently asking him to go on.</p><p>“I hate being outside when it rains, because it rains <em>through </em>me, and I don’t remember what raindrops on my skin feel like. Raindrops on a warm day in early summer, when you can close your eyes and let them fall on your face, and try to catch them in your mouth.”</p><p>“Like with snowflakes,” Percy interjected wistfully – he’d always loved winter, perhaps more than summer, he’d loved Christmas and the snow, the crackling fireplace in the common room, and turtleneck sweaters and school, and he hadn’t always enjoyed the summers at the Burrow, where it was hot and everyone was in their tiny house together, sweating, and everyone hated him, it felt like.</p><p>Aaron looked at him and smiled, because it was easier when someone shared your pain, “Yeah, like with snowflakes. When it’s cold but it doesn’t matter because there’s snow, and you can chase after the flakes and try to catch them in your mouth.”</p><p>“And when it’s the first snow that winter you just go around touching it, feeling the strange consistency of it,” Percy added. That we will never feel again, he thought then, and hated the reminder.</p><p>“And when you walk on snow your steps are silent except for the-“ Aaron seemed to be looking for a word, “-the… creaking of the snow.”</p><p>Percy understood exactly what he meant, even with the word that didn’t exactly fit, and he’d missed Aaron’s English, which was still unique, slightly foreign, but so much better than when he’d first arrive. He spoke with greater ease, and his vocabulary was better, larger.</p><p> There were only a few moments, when he was trying to express something strange, something important to him, when he stuttered, hesitated, and used some word that somehow, peculiarly, fit, even if it didn’t, and Percy had missed that – they hadn’t had the type of conversation where that happened in a while.</p><p>And talking to Aaron like this again made him feel warm inside, chased the cold away, and he couldn’t help the slight smile that crossed his face. But Aaron smiled back, even though he still looked miserable, and Percy really wanted to hug him, but ghosts didn’t do hugs (they felt weird, touching felt weird, cold and wrong).</p><p>It was almost like Aaron had read his mind, because the next thing he said was, “And I’m never going to hug, or kiss, or touch someone again. That’s the worst part, I think. I don’t understand how people like the Fat Friar or Ser Nicholas, who’ve been like this for centuries, are still… sane. It’s been two months and I can hardly bear it, the… touch-starvation.”</p><p>He said “touch-starvation” like a foreign word, like he’d never said it before, and he probably hadn’t, he’d probably learned it from Emily or the house elves (Percy doubted the musicians knew words like that) and hadn’t ever had the chance to use it before.</p><p>“And… literal starvation,” Aaron chuckled at his own pun, looking at Percy like he was expecting recognition, and Percy grinned as well, honestly impressed that Aaron was comfortable enough with the language to make jokes like that, and Aaron’s face was glowing with pride.</p><p>“I miss eating. I miss… foods that you’ve probably never heard of, the restaurants we used to go to that had amazing food, I miss coming home hungry and finally getting to eat something, whatever it may be… I used to love eating, and food.”</p><p>Percy was thinking, only half paying attention. He came to a decision, then. “I can’t help with the food, but… we can touch,” he offered. He instantly wished he cold take the words back, because they sounded way too intimate now that he’d said them out loud, and maybe Aaron would take it the wrong way, maybe Aaron didn’t want that, maybe he was ruining the moment, and he really couldn’t deal with Aaron rejecting him.</p><p>Aaron’s intense gaze stared into his eyes, then he reached out with one hand towards Percy, and Percy reached out with his own, slowly, until their fingers touched. It was a strange feeling, the way it always was, cold, almost wet, sending a prickle up Percy’s spine. But Aaron didn’t seem to mind, entwining their fingers and squeezing gently, his eyes never leaving Percy’s.</p><p>It felt wrong, touching someone that didn’t exist – there was no end to their bodies, not really, because they weren’t bodies, just spirits, fluid and inconsistent. It almost felt like their hands could, would, melt together, like there was no border between them, no shell to protect them from flowing away, from falling apart, and as much as it should have felt uncomfortable it felt nice, because Aaron was touching him, holding his hand, and even though it was barely anything it felt incredibly intimate.</p><p>They stayed like that for a moment, sitting in silence, looking at each other, holding hands. Then Aaron cleared his throat. “I-I should probably tell you something. Um, explain, maybe, why we haven’t been talking that much.”</p><p>Percy tensed up, because that couldn’t possibly end well. Though at least he was acknowledging it, that things were different between them, and that it hadn’t just been circumstantial, it had come from Aaron, to an extent at least.</p><p>Aaron looked away from him, staring at the Quidditch hoops across the field, head bowed slightly and long curls falling in his face, but their fingers stayed entwined, and he was running his thumb across the back of Percy’s hand in a way that made him shiver, and really want to kiss him.</p><p>“That night, after you talked to Ginny for the first time, I realised something, and it scared me.”</p><p>Percy’s stomach clenched – of course he’d realised Percy had a crush on him and that was why he’d distanced himself. He’d known that, he just hadn’t wanted to believe it, hadn’t wanted to ask and have it confirmed, instead hiding from the truth, from conflict, the way he always did.</p><p>Aaron was talking more quickly now, “I realised that I- that I was falling for you, and I know you don’t feel the same way, and I thought it would help to stay away for a while, to get over my feelings, and I’ve been trying, but… it’s not that easy, getting over you.”</p><p>He looked at Percy with a small smile, half hidden by the curls covering his face – he’d made his hair reach an impressive length, almost to his shoulders, and as much as Percy had always hated messy, long hair, the way Aaron looked with the ghostly blue curls all around his face, following his every move, made his heart race.</p><p>His heart was racing for a different reason now though (although the hair definitely wasn’t helping). That was definitely not what he’d been expecting.</p><p>“You-,“ he started, but Aaron interrupted him, almost frantically, and his hand squeezed Percy’s tightly, though Percy didn’t think he was aware of it.</p><p>“I hope it doesn’t make you feel uncomfortable. I mean, of course it’s fine if it does, I completely understand, I just thought you deserved an explanation…” he trailed off, looking nervous, and Percy was still speechless.</p><p>He finally found his tongue again, “I thought- I’ve had a crush on you since the night we met! I thought it was obvious, I thought that was why you were avoiding me, because you were… creeped out, or something.”</p><p>“What? Of course not!” Aaron laughed then, first a quiet, incredulous sound, but then his grin widened and he stared at Percy, eyes shining with joy.</p><p>“I’m a fucking idiot,” he concluded.</p><p>Percy grinned too, a giddy feeling spreading in his chest. “You really are. I thought you didn’t like me anymore, that you found me annoying or self-centred or-”</p><p>He fell silent as Aaron pulled him into a hug, wrapping his arms around him tightly, and even though he was cold against Percy’s skin, it felt warm, and safe.</p><p>“I think you’re amazing,” Aaron whispered in his ear, “I think you’re brave, and smart, and the best person to talk to about anything. And I love that you’re serious about things, that you don’t just shake things off and when you say something, you mean it.”</p><p>Percy honestly didn’t even know how to respond to that, how to express the elation he felt at the moment – he’d only ever dreamed of this, of Aaron holding him, whispering loving things to him, and he felt like he could cry.</p><p>Aaron ran his fingers through Percy’s hair, softly, making sure not to tangle it up. “I love your hair,” he added, “And I love your sense of humour.”</p><p>Percy snorted, “What sense of humour?”</p><p>“Hey, you can be very funny when you want to be. And your jokes are so much better <em>because </em>they are rare. It feels like a gift, when you make a joke. I always know that it means that you really want to make me smile or laugh.”</p><p>Percy hummed thoughtfully. He’d never looked at it that way before.</p><p>“Anyway, do you want to be my boyfriend?” Aaron asked, detaching himself from Percy slightly to smile at him.</p><p>Percy smiled back. “Of course.”</p><p> </p><p>They talked afterwards, for hours and hours, first about how Aaron could’ve possibly not realised that Percy had a thing for him, and how Percy could’ve possibly missed that Aaron had a thing for him, concluding that they were both a bit oblivious (since all of their friends had clearly known).</p><p>And then they talked about everything else, all the things that had happened the past month, and all the things they were planning to do now (now that they were together, and Percy still felt giddy whenever he thought of it) – a trip to the cinema was definitely going to happen at some point, they’d decided.</p><p>When it was dawning, and the sky was miraculously almost clear, they were still sitting on the Quidditch pitch, holding hands, talking about their favourite songs and what records the kids were going to have to buy for them over the break to play on Seamus' CD-player (as payment for all the free tutoring they had given them).</p><p>That was how Emily found them as well, and she just grinned, not saying a word about their joined hands, or the way they were beaming constantly, simply joining the discussion with her own requests – which, according to Aaron were positively <em>ancient</em>, which started a discussion about whether or not modern muggle music was “complete and utter horseshit”, in the words of Emily. Percy sat beside them and listened, still holding Aaron's hand, and watched the sun go up over the forest.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>I'm sorry this chapter took so long, I have a lot to do right now, not much time for writing, but I'm trying my best :)</p>
        </blockquote><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>This is my first ever fanfic, so all feedback is appreciated! :)</p></blockquote></div></div>
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